It Became Complicated
by MewShiny
Summary: It seems that Shinichi has returned but Conan is still around... who is this imposter that claims he really is Shinichi Kudo despite clearly knowing Conan's true identity? It didn't take very long to find out... but afterward... well it became complicated
1. The Honest Imposter

**This sort of story suits mt usual style better than the last one I wrote did... I hope people enjoy this one as well... I figured I'd be writing another Metantei Conan fanfic soon, but I thought I'd wind up waiting more time than this before starting... well whatever  
**

**Well... 'Shinichi' will seem a bit ooc in this chapter (and probably in future ones as well) but there's a reason for it which will probably be explained in chapter 2. It'll be a bit dialogue driven in the beginning but if it's anything like last time it won't be by the end. There is a lot of weird stuff coming up so... be prepared!  
**

**I hope you enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**1. The Honest Imposter  
**

"Hey Ran-neechan, why are you smiling?" I asked in my usual childish tone, "Did something good happen?"

Ran had come home from school looking extremely happy, I guess there's really no reason for me to be suspicious because of something like that, but it just seemed odd for some reason.

Her smile was even brighter when she replied, "Shinichi is back, he came to school today."

_Eh? Impossible... _I'm_ Shinichi, I wasn't there. It has to be an imposter..._

"Ran-neechan, did Shinichi-niichan act weird at all?" I asked, probably sounding a little bit more worried than I meant to.

"Well... he was acting kind of weird... but I think he was just nervous to be going back to school after missing so much a long time," She responded.

_Who on earth is this fake...? _I figured it would be best to just ask directly, "I'm going to go say hi to Shinichi-niichan!"

I dashed out the door and was quickly in front of the house that had at one point been considered mine.

I rang the buzzer, half expecting that the imposter wouldn't pick up, but through the speaker I heard a voice that sounded just like I had when I was Shinichi Kudo, "Who's there?"

There have been several times when people have tried to pass themselves off as me, but this could've only been one of them. Hattori had tried to disguise as me twice but he was easily caught without my help, Okuda Makoto got plastic surgery to look exactly like me but his voice was notably different than mine, Kaitou Kid however had a face similar to mine without the use of a mask and he was able to manipulate his voice at will. I couldn't be sure why, but this was probably Kaitou Kid.

"Shinichi-niichan, It's me Conan," I replied.

He laughed as something I'd said was funny, "The door isn't locked, come in if you'd like. You're here to be sure I'm not a dangerous person right?"

I didn't answer, I accepted the invitation and went inside to confront the imposter.

As far as appearance went, if I didn't know any better I would have thought he really was Shinichi Kudo, but because I knew without a doubt that I was the real Shinichi Kudo I understood that he was just a very skillful fake.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He replied with a smile, "Shinichi Kudo."

"That's impossible." I asked again, "Who are you?"

"Kudo Shinichi."

"Changing the order of the surname and given name doesn't make it any less impossible," I sighed. _It seems like this guy is pretty hard to deal with, but I don't think he's Kaitou Kid._

"I can't prove it to you at the moment, but it's the truth," He said in a somewhat serious tone, but it seemed like he was still laughing to himself a little bit as he continued, "I'd rather you just go along with it and not ask too many questions... but I realize that I'm not in a position that you'd easily trust me, so I promise that I'll answer you honestly as long as it's something I can answer."

_What is he talking about?_

"By the way I know that _you _are Shinichi Kudo too," The imposter that so strongly claimed to be me admitted.

There would be no point in denying it to a fake, "Then why are you claiming to be me?"

"I told you that already, 'because it's true'."

"Then are you saying that in this room there are two Shinichi Kudos?" I asked, curiosity beginning to get the better of me.

_This guy keeps becoming more and more suspicious... he's obviously lying about who he is, but how is it that he can look and sound exactly like me, what does he think he'll get out of pretending to be me, and how does he know who I am?_

"Exactly," He said as if I had just asked if it hurts to get hit by a car, "Though I'm afraid I can't tell you how it's possible that we're both actually Shinichi Kudo, you'll have to figure that out on your own, but please don't get in my way while you're investigating. I'm actually doing something really important."

Suddenly the cell phone that I used for calling as Shinichi Kudo began ringing, I checked the caller ID, It was Hattori.

The imposter grabbed the phone and answered it, putting the phone on speaker phone. He gave me a look as if to say 'it's easier this way right?'

"Yo Kudo!" Hattori said, he sounded excited which probably meant he had a case that was going to bring him here for a visit.

"Hey Heiji, long time no see," The imposter said calmly.

"Eh? Kudo... yer voice is..."

"It's an imposter, Hattori, there's a fake here claiming to be me," I said.

"Hey, I told you. I really am Shinichi Kudo!" The imposter said insistently, "Stop calling me a fake already."

"But you can't prove it, besides I'm Shinichi Kudo."

Hattori seemed to be confused by what was going on, "One of ya has ta be a fake."

"He is," I said.

At the same time the imposter said, "Neither of us is fake."

"Well, I'll be in Tokyo tamarra' so let's try and sort dis out den..." Hattori hung up.

I sighed and looked at the imposter, "You wouldn't happen to be Kaitou Kid would you?"

"Is that what you've been thinking? Kaito has better things to do than pretend to be me for seemingly no reason," Suddenly he trailed off, "Crap... I shouldn't have said that."

"What do you mean by that...?" I wondered aloud.

He seemed to be thinking something over very seriously, he ignored me and had started talking to himself quietly, "It's harder than I expected... I've got to be more careful not to say anything that they wouldn't know about... If I keep this up I'll be exposed..."

"Exposed of what?" I asked, "So you are hiding something then?"

He seemed to jump at the thought that I now had reason to believe he was hiding something, he realized that I wouldn't give up until I was able to figure out what he was hiding, "Really, it can't be helped. I'm only hiding things because it'd be dangerous if anyone -especially you- found out about it. But it really is true that I'm Shinichi Kudo, you can check my fingerprints or DNA if you're that set on not believing me."

I wanted to call him on his bluff, but he looked so serious that I couldn't. He should have known that if he wasn't telling the truth and I did try and test his fingerprints or DNA it would all be over for him, normally no one would take that kind of risk without much reason, besides he said he was doing this for something important before. It's not like I carry around the kind of equipment I'd have needed to check anyway.

"For the time being why don't you go home, I'll still be here in the morning so you and Heiji can investigate me when he gets here," He said when I was taking long to reply.

What he said made sense, I hated that by going home I was doing exactly as the imposter had asked, but it was the best course of action- Ran would get upset if I weren't back before dinnertime when I was supposedly just going over to say hello.

_Seriously... who is that guy?_


	2. Age Is But A Number

**Hahaha the second chapter! The identity of the Shinichi 'imposter' is close to being revealed (to those of you that couldn't guess) but not completely, for now Hattori meets and investigates the 'imposter with Conan, and the three of them solve a mystery!  
**

**Those of you who read my last story should know I suck at coming up with mysteries so don't expect much when you get to that part of the chapter... I leave out a lot of deviance but... It get's handled pretty quickly anyway.  
**

**I hope you enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**2. Age Is But A Number  
**

There was no school the next day and Hattori arrived early in the morning.

"Heiji-niichan, you wanted to meet up with Shinichi-niichan right? He's at his house," I said to create an excuse for Hattori and I to go over there to confront the imposter again.

"Right... I heard he was back so I had ta come see him," Hattori replied, "So is it ok if I barrow dis kid and go see Kudo den?"

"Sure... Conan doesn't have school today or anything so it should be fine..." Ran said, sounding a bit disappointed. She probably was planning on catching up with 'Shinichi' today, I felt bad to take that opportunity away from her, but it wasn't really 'Shinichi' anyway.

"It's nice to see you Heiji, and welcome back 'Conan'," the self-proclaimed Shinichi said as Hattori and I walked in to what had previously been my house.

"So... dis guy's da fake right, Kudo?" Hattori looked at me and then at the imposter with a 'man this is going to be annoying' expression.

"That's really rude you know, don't call me 'fake' if you can't prove it," The imposter said in a somewhat annoyed tone, "I really am Shinichi Kudo."

"But you mentioned yesterday that you can't prove that either," I pointed out, causing the imposter to flinch a little bit.

"Now that I think about it..." The imposter trailed off as if thinking about something very hard, he walked up to Hattori and smiled, "It's been a while since I've been eye-level with Heiji... It's good that I don't have to worry about it wearing off this time. Crap... I said something I shouldn't again..."

_It is annoying to be shorter than people my own age... and Hattori always rubs it in my face any chance he gets that I've become a child._

"D'ya really expect me ta believe yer Kudo? Yer personality's all wrong," Hattori noted.

"Going through puberty a second time tends to do that to a person."

"Really?" Hattori said, looking at me.

"How would I know, I've only gone through puberty once," I replied, "Actually... come to think of it why does that guy call you 'Heiji' so familiarly?"

"Hmmm... dat is weird 'cause ya always call me 'Hattori'... well sometimes it's 'Heiji-niichan'..."

"Hey, Heiji, You were originally coming to Tokyo for a case, right? If I can solve that case faster than either of you can then will you believe that I'm also Shinichi Kudo?" The imposter said, with a strangely confident smile.

_Why is he so confident about this, he's basically saying that Hattori and I can work together and that he's sure that he can still solve it faster than we can. As much as I hate to admit it Hattori and I are on almost the same level as detectives- of course I'm still better than he is but this guy claiming to be me is saying he can beat us both at once? Impossible._

Hattori seemed to be thinking the same thing, "If ya can do dat, I might be willin' ta believe dat ya might be Kudo."

"That's good," The imposter said calmly, "Then let's go see this case."

In the car -which fake me was driving as he apparently had a license, although he refused to show it to us- Hattori explained that the case we were going to see was given to him because the victim's mother was a fan of his, and after a moment (only a moment because he quickly realized that he was out numbered by 'Shinichi's, even if one was a fake) of gloating he described the details of the case.

Apparently the mother had gone to the victim's room to wake her up for school and had found her daughter lying on the floor motionless with a knife sticking out of her stomach; from the sound of things the victim had also left a dying message, a heart with a zigzagged line down the middle drawn in blood.

_A murder then? A heart with a zigzagged line... if I'm not mistaken that means 'heartbroken', did the victim recently break up with her boyfriend and he murdered her because of that? Or maybe it's something else...__  
_

When we got to the scene of the crime Hattori and I both immediately checked on the body and dying message, while the imposter started wandering around the room looking at various things.

"It's strange ta leave such a detailed dyin' message. If she had dat much time before dyin' den she should'a just called fer help, or wrote de killer's name..." Hattori noted.

"Right," I responded, "... you said the police couldn't find any fingerprints on the knife besides the victim's?"

"Yeah, de murderer was proll'y wearin' gloves."

The imposter suddenly stopped wandering and came up to us, "I've solved it."

Neither Hattori or I were able to say anything to that, though Hattori did spaz a bit with disbelief.

"Suicide," He said, "The 'victim' killed herself and left that 'dying message' in attempt to frame either her boyfriend, who was cheating on her, or her best friend, whom the boyfriend cheated on her with. The proof is that all three of them wear a half-heart necklace meant for couples- the kind that has either 'Lo' or "ve' written on it- both girls have an 'Lo' piece while the boy has a 've' piece, I saw them when I looked at the pictures in the room, he had probably kept it from them that he was dating both of them at once and when the 'victim' found out she did this."

I was dumbfounded, _How did he figure all of that out so quickly... He knew right away that looking at the body wouldn't help and looked at the room instead? How...?_

As though he could guess what I was thinking the imposter replied, "It's a matter of experience, I just happen to have more than you do."

The imposter went to explain his deduction to the 'victim's mother, while Hattori and I went ahead to the car.

"It's really weird fer him ta have solved it dat quickly."

I agreed, "I know. There's something that's... 'off' about him."

"Yeah, one things fer sure though..." Hattori trailed off, "Dat guy is a better detective dan you are."

"I wouldn't lose to some imposter," I replied, "this guy must have had some kind of unfair advantage."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me an imposter, Conan," The fake said as he got in the car having finished explaining things to the crying mother, "It's rude, besides, wasn't that what we bet on this case? You guy's said you would accept the _fact_ that I'm 'Shinichi Kudo' despite 'Conan' _also_ being actually 'Shinichi Kudo' if I was able to solve the case before you two could. I solved it first, so please call me by my name..."

His attitude was beginning to annoy me, I glared at him but spoke in my usual 'Conan' tone, "Right, and just how did you solve that case so quickly, '_Shinichi_-niichan'?"

"I already knew the answer," He replied, "It was just like a case I worked with a few years ago."

_If he already knew the answer isn't that cheating? ...I haven't had any cases that are particularly similar to this though... if he's claiming to be me, isn't saying that a slip up?_

"But I haven't had a case similar to this before... how many years ago was it?"

"For me? About eleven..." Immediately after saying it he sighed, "Crap... again..."

"Just how old are ya?" Hattori asked picking up on the fact that if what the imposter said was true I'd have been solving cases since I was six, though I guess as Conan I have been.

"Do you promise not to freak out? Like Conan, I'm a bit older than I look," the imposter sighed, resigning himself to answer as he knew that if he avoided it we would only get more suspicious.

Hattori and I both agreed that we would not 'freak out'.

"I'm twenty-eight."

"SERIOUSLY?"


	3. You'd Only Get In My Way

**Time for chapter three! We begin to get into the paradox stuff! I love writing this sort of thing so 'Shinichi' is giung to ramble a bit... fine, he rambles a lot... and there's a bit of foreshadowing! Wheet! I'm on a roll huh?  
**

**I already know how I want to end this story but I haven't decided on all the middle stuff yet... this is going to be hard... should I just write and post the ending with a vague 'and this and that happened' sort of tie in (it'd be less vague than that...)... I get the feeling that would disappoint the people that actually take the time to read these amateur writings of mine.  
**

**Sorry this chapter is so short compared to the last two, but I had to end it on a foreboding note... I just had too!  
**

**As usual, I hope you enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**3. You'd only get in my way  
**

_It's impossible. This guy has to be lying. There's no way he's Shinichi Kudo, and there's no way he's actually twenty-eight years old. Even if it were possible for one of those to be true, there's absolutely no way that both can. Unless..._

"Yer not sayin' yer from de future... are ya?" Hattori hesitantly asked the aforementioned liar in the driver's seat.

He seemed to have difficulty wording his answer, "If I were -not that I am- I would be better off not answering that kind of question directly, for various reasons I also would be better off not mentioning... if it were true."

_That is probably the most indirect way I've ever seen anyone answer a question..._

"At least that's what Ai told me I should say If I was asked, but if I left it at that you two would just think I'm even more suspicious than I already seem... All I can say for now is that I am a 'Shinichi' that has been living my life as 'Conan' for the past twelve years, a permanent antidote for Apotoxin 4869 hasn't been created yet -if you couldn't already tell from my appearance. I've come back to this point in time from that future in order to prevent certain events... I'm sorry but If I explain exactly what event I'm referring to then it'll cause a_ huge_ paradox and no one really knows what will happen..." He explained in the most serious tone I'd heard the imposter use yet, "Do you understand?"

For a moment Hattori and I were both silent.

_Would a person go out of their way to make up such an elaborate lie? Plus not only does he look and sound like me he knows about things relating to me like Apotoxin 4869... that means it can't be Kid because he doesn't know about that... so could it be possible that he really is telling the truth?_

"So what am I like in de future?" Hattori asked, "You've already mentioned that I've gotten taller."

"If I told you about yourself the future would almost definitely change, you _could_ wind up dying before the time I came from or any number of other things could happen. The fact that I'm telling myself anything about the past eleven years (my time) can be overlooked because I've already begun to change the past, the 'Conan'/'Shinichi' right there is no longer the same as _me_ because by your meeting me that hadn't met another me at this time the butterfly effect has made big changes to the future... but not big enough to change what I've come to change."

"Ah... is dat so...?"

I felt like slapping him for spewing such nonsense while looking and sounding like me.

_But out of the people that know my real identity and how I go to be like this... I don't think any of them would be able to convincingly disguise themselves as me, including the voice. It would be best to just assume he's telling the truth for now and try and find some evidence against it later._

"So are you telling us this because you want us to help you change the future?" I asked the supposed future me. _This sounds like a plot that you would find in a bad manga..._

"No, " He replied without any hesitation, "I said as much already didn't I? If you associate with me too much then the future will change in _unpredictable_ ways, so because there are certain events that I'm trying to avoid happening it's better for me to work alone, that way I'll be able to calculate what may change and what won't. I was only answering you guys questions because you would definitely get in my way if you were investigating me and calling me an imposter all the time. I'll handle this on my own, you'd just get in my way."

_That's... blunt. The future me is very blunt._

With that we arrived back in front of my/his house. It seems Hattori decided he was going to stay over to make sure that the future me wasn't doing anything strange... though I think time travel should fall into the category of strange. Not that I particularly mind, I found that future me to be very suspicious, I'm sure Hattori also picked up on it...

The way that he'd been speaking... he was deliberately giving us hints so we would realize that he was from the future, if he's been 'Conan' for twelve years now he's probably gotten used to giving Oji-san hints, even if he probably started solving cases himself in late middle school he'd still keep a low profile and make 'Sleeping Kogoro' the famous detective if he's after the black organization, he should be able to give hints pretty well and make a person think they thought of it themselves.

The only question is why would he want us to have come to that conclusion? Wouldn't it have been more convenient for him if he hadn't had to say that he was from the future... if he's really me he should know that nonsense like 'coming from the future' would only make me want to investigate him even more than before.

_Or maybe... that's exactly what he wants..._


	4. It Became Complicated

**With this I've made it easier on myself by making an excuse to call the older one 'Shinichi' and the younger 'Conan' all the time ^v^ it was getting difficult cause Shinichi (read: Conan) is so stubborn and still won't admit that the one from the future is technically still him... it's so hard to talk about both of them at once in a way that you guys won't be too confused...  
**

**This chapter was so hard to write, it's mostly just filler, foreshadowing, and comic relief... strange considering it's the title chapter...but I couldn't just jump into the ending... I can't let it wind up being only five or six chapters, maybe seven or eight would be fine though...  
**

**I've noticed as I continue writing Meitantei Conan stories Heiji's accent becomes thicker and thicker with each time he appears... I guess that's an epic fail on my part, I should at least keep it consistent...  
**

**I hope you enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**4. It Became Complicated  
**

Even if I assume that future me wanted Hattori and I to reach the conclusion that he was from the future I have no idea why he would do such a thing. It still doesn't make any sense for him to want us to know he came from the future if he's trying to keep us from interfering in his mission to change the future... because he's me he should definitely know that telling me I'll get in the way will make me try harder to get involved if there's no proof, or he should have at least thought that Hattori and I knowing that time travel will be invented would probably change the future a good bit.

That future me... no, It's troublesome calling him that, at least for now, I may as well call him 'Shinichi'. Just what is Shinichi planning...

"Bye Conan!" Ran shouted from downstairs in the detective agency, "You and dad can just microwave something for dinner, okay?"

"Okay! Bye Ran-neechan!" I called back, trying to sound childish rather than irritated like I really was.

That Shinichi also shouted from downstairs, "Bye Conan, see you around sometime."

I didn't say anything to him. More precisely, I _wouldn't_ say anything to him.

If you hadn't already guessed, what's about to happen is exactly what it sounds like; _Shinichi_ just came to pick Ran up and now they're leaving to go somewhere (a movie, I think) together, _alone_... in other words, it's a date.

The self-proclaimed time traveler is taking Ran out... on a date.

The thought of it irritates me to no end. I know what you're thinking, but it's not like I'm jealous or anything... I mean the guy she's going on a date with is technically me, if I were jealous of him wouldn't that be kind of counterproductive?

Actually I'm not so much worried by who he is... but by his age. Even if he looks like he's only seventeen he's twenty-eight for goodness sake, she's only sixteen. Four more years and he would be twice her age, of course I'd be concerned if they were going out on a date. Unfortunately I can't stop them because I'm 'Conan', if I showed up and ruined their date... Ran's fury would be _limitless_.

So while 'Shinichi' does who knows what with Ran, I'm stuck hanging out with Hattori- Ran had suspected that I'd get into trouble by myself so she asked him to come _BABYSIT_ me because he was in the area. It's bad enough that he _already_ makes kid jokes about me left and right, now he's babysitting me... _I'll never live this down..._

"When are ya gonna stop glarein' at me, Kudo? If someone else was babysittin' ya ya'd have ta keep actin' like a kid," Hattori said, with an ear to ear grin that showed all too well how much he was enjoying playing the babysitter.

_Sometimes I wish he would shrink... then I could pay him back for how he's always treating me... sometimes. _

I ignored my desire to shoot Hattori with my tranquilizer watch -for fun- and changed the subject from me apparent need for a babysitter, "What do you think that guy's up to?"

"Ya mean da other Kudo?" Hattori asked just to be sure and continued after I nodded, "Dere's somethin' stange 'bout him, but he doesn't seem ta be wearin' a disguise or nethin' so it seems like he's da real deal."

"Figures. Even if his personality is completely different than mine, there aren't any holes in his story..." I sighed, "As much as I hate to admit it, it seems like he's telling the truth about his situation."

Hattori looked at me suddenly, encroaching a bit too far into my personal space to check my temperature, "Are ya sick or somethin'?"

"Of course not, why? Do I look sick?"

"It's just... normally ya'd be de last one ta suggest dat time travel'd be possible," He explained, "Maybe ya've got a cold an' it's messin' with yer head."

"I'm fine Hattori."

We sat around for hours discussing whether or not we believed time travel was theoretically possible. We hadn't yet reached a clear conclusion, in fact we were in the middle of a heated debate between the light speed time travel theory and the black hole time travel theory as to which was more realistic, when I suddenly received a text message from the self proclaimed time traveler himself.

It went something like this:

_'Shinichi'-_

_ I'll be needing your help after all._

_'Conan'-_

_ With the future?_

_'Shinichi'-_

_ Yeah. I had to move to 'Plan B'. I won't be able to do everything on my own now._

_So will you help me change the future?_

_'Conan'-_

_Of course._

He'd already finished up his date with Ran and they were on their way home, we agreed that after he dropped her off I would come with him and we would discuss the details at my/his house under the guise of wanting to finish up a game with 'Heiji-niichan'.

If only I had realized at that time just how complicated things were about to become.


	5. The One That Started It All

**A slightly longer chapter, although a lot of useless stuff happens but they do manage to get stuff done... so yeah.  
**

**Kyah-ha-ha-ha-ha, with just the title of the chapter I'm sure you can guess what 'Plan B' entails... or if you can't you'll probably understand by the end of the chapter. If not then I didn't foreshadow _near_ as well as I thought I did.  
**

**I hope you enjoy (I suppose you have been so far...) and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**5. The one that started it all  
**

While we were walking to his/my house next door 'Shinichi' suddenly suggested, "Oh, why don't we discuss things at the professor's house instead?"

"Hmmm? I can't say I object... but why?" I replied. I could practically sense that he was about to do something weird again.

"But isn't this the perfect opportunity?" He asked, when he realized that I didn't know what he meant he sighed loudly and explained, "Ai still hasn't noticed that I'm here right? Don't you want to prank her? I'll walk in and you stay outside for a bit and I'll say 'look Apotoxin 4869 wore off!', she'd be shocked, right?"

"After eleven years... I've become a prankster?"

"Come on, live a little, she's always teasing me- well you too, don't you want to get her back a little bit?" He said in a very convincing tone.

_Why does it feel like _I'm _the older one here?_

After exchanging a few sarcastic comments I agreed to his prank and waited outside the professor's house for a little bit while he went in. I could hear what was being said through my glasses because of a transmitter he'd put in his pocket, but I really wish I could've seen the look on her face...

"Eh! Kudo-kun!" Haibara shouted in surprise, around the same time the professor shouted, "Shinichi!"

"The one and only," after saying this he laughed to himself a little bit.

"B-but how?"

"It looks like Apotoxin 4869 wore off, I guess I just needed a year for my body to develop antibodies against it," 'Shinichi' said casually, "You'll probably be your original self sometime soon, Ai."

Haibara started to say something but then apparently thought better of it, she had probably found it strange that he'd called her 'Ai' when I always call her 'Haibara'. _If you're going to try to prank by pretending to be me then at least act more like me..._

The professor didn't notice this and was simply excited for me, "That's amazing, Shinichi!"

"Well _that_ aside... I'm only joking. Your poison is just as effective _now_ as it's ever been."

I took that as my cue to come in, which further shocked Ai and the professor. I guess being surprised would be a common reaction to seeing two people that are supposedly the same person, beyond any shadow of doubt, in the same place at once.

'Shinichi' was the one that broke the silence, "Allow me to explain. This child, Conan -who you better know to be Shinichi Kudo-, and I are the same person. I've come from eleven years in the future in order to change my past -and by extension your future. However due to various circumstances it seems my 'Plan A' will not work so I'm soliciting Conan's help for 'Plan B'. With that said... any questions?"

_What a vague summery... you could at least say what 'Plan A' was or explain why it won't work..._

"Time travel is impossible," Haibara responded immediately.

"Says the girl who_ invented_ the time machine..." 'Shinichi' whispered to me, presumably so Haibara wouldn't hear. He then replied to her aloud, "It's possible, Ai, I can prove it."

_That's not what you've been saying up until now... haven't you strongly stated that you can't prove it?_

"I have a letter to you from your future self, she probably wrote one or two things that I couldn't possibly know about in it in order to prove her own identity and to prove mine to you," He stated boredly as he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small white envelope.

Haibara took the letter and read it over quickly only to read it again after having finished, she sighed, "So... it is possible..."

"That's what I've been saying. Well... we can go back to my- er our house now Conan, that letter was really the only reason that I wanted to come over here," He said without much interest.

Before anyone could say anything he began to walk towards the door, I followed him waving goodbye to the professor and Haibara.

"Why didn't you just put the letter in their mailbox or something?" I asked. I didn't see any real point in having gone to their house if they weren't going to be involved in plan B.

"If I did that I wouldn't have had the chance to prank her, " He replied, he sounded a bit disappointed, "I wanted to at least try to have a little bit of fun... before I possibly erased myself as I am now..."

I was almost afraid to ask, "What do you mean?"

"By changing the past to the extent that I plan to, the future will be completely overwritten, everything will be different than the future I came from... without my current past I won't exist -at least not as I am now, even if I _don't_ disappear... I'll have nowhere to go, I'd be the only one that remembers everything in a way different from everyone else. I've already accepted that, before I left the future I'd already resigned myself to disappear for the sake of a better future," He looked straight at me as he continued, "Are you willing to do the same? For plan B to work, You'll need to be prepared for at least that much..."

_That's a lot to dump on a person at one time... disappear? Am I prepared to sacrifice the current me to change the future... wait this doesn't add up, my past is already established there shouldn't be any concern that I might disappear... unless..._

"You don't mean...?"

"You've already figured out that much? That's good, I won't have to explain as much..." He paused, "You're right, though. For plan B we'll need to go back in time even further than this, to change an important event in your past."

I didn't have to ask him what event he meant...it was pretty clear, there was only one 'event' that I could think of that was serious enough that he'd have that sorrowful look on his face. The very thought of it made me tremble with fear, hate, and sorrow all at once.

The one that started it all.


	6. PaRaDoX sYnDrOmE

**Future Shinichi finally is starting to really show his genius, but he still sounds like he's playing around... He gets to ramble in this chapter... a lot. So be prepared for the usual overly complicated speech patterns and eccentric tone.  
**

**Wheeet! Another long-ish chapter! With an ending that clearly reveals what will happen next -though it was slightly foreshadowed in chapter one.  
**

**I hope you enjoy (though I suppose you must be enjoying it to have read this far, otherwise you have too much free time, you need to learn to paint kittens or something) and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**6_. Paradox Syndrome_  
**

After having learned the event that 'Shinichi's 'Plan B' was going to change I couldn't even touch the tea that he'd sat in front of me. Hattori -who was also present- picked up on my tension and became unwilling to drink his tea either. 'Shinichi' was the only person that was able to accept the situation at it's face value and casually sip tea as he informed us the details of 'Plan B'.

"Conan, you and I will be going back in time to prevent that event from occurring, after we arrive in the past we'll need to split up immediately. Your job will be to distract the 'Shinichi' of that time period- I don't care how, he probably won't believe you if you tell him the truth, so lie if you have to- if he sees me he'll want to investigate. Meanwhile I'll take care of everything else, once I'm done I'll try and meet up with you so we can tell of temporal variant of the situation before we disappear because of the timeline being rewritten. Any questions?"

"What d'ya mean ya'll take care of everythin'?" Hattori asked, we'd decided not to tell him what event we were going to change, he'd be completely against the idea. As such he wasn't quite aware of the gravity of the situation, though he seemed to have his suspicions.

"Exactly what I said, I'll handle it so you don't need to worry about it okay?"

Even Hattori wasn't hot-blooded enough to try to ask again, it's obvious that he'd only get another vague answer if he tried.

"Oh, I've been wondering," I asked, thinking this might be a good chance to get some answers as any, "Why exactly did 'Plan A' fail? What were you trying to change with it anyway?"

"I forgot."

Hattori and I could only stare at him in utter confusion.

Is he saying he doesn't remember what he was trying to change? Ridiculous, if it's unimportant enough to forget he wouldn't go back in time eleven years to change it. Does he mean he doesn't remember why Plan A failed? It should have happened just recently, he would definitely remember that much. Is forgetting just an excuse so he doesn't have to explain anything? He isn't that stupid.

In the midst of our silence 'Shinichi' glared at us, "it's your fault that I can't remember."

"Eh? Howzat?" Hattori responded in surprise.

"'_Paradox Syndrome_'," He said suddenly in English, explaining in Japanese, "it's an odd affect that occurs while time traveling, for some reason if a time traveler says too much regarding time travel to their temporal variant then their memories of significant future events will be lost until they return to the future."

"That sounds... extremely inconvenient..." was all I could say.

"It is, now I can't remember the event I was trying to stop originally stop or what I was supposed to be doing for Plan A, and it's all because I had to spend so much time around you guys to convince you that I'm who I really say I am," He gave an annoyed sigh, "I really wanted to avoid having to use Plan B... it's definitely going to have a huge impact on the future... there's no way 'Conan' -and by extension myself- can come out of this unchanged..."

"Exactly 'when' are ya goin' ta go neway?" Hattori asked.

Because 'Shinichi' and I already had a mutual agreement that he was better off not knowing when the two of us would arrive in the past I changed the subject with a more interesting question, "Where is your time machine?"

"That is the biggest problem of our current situation," He replied casually as though he were not about to -though Hattori and I had already predicted he would- suggest something completely unreasonable, "and that is where Heiji's role in this lies."

After a short pause 'Shinichi' continued.

"As it just so happens, the Black Organization was doing research on time travel during this time period... I'm sure they've caught on to the existence of my time machine by now, but they won't be able to move it at the moment I'm the only one that can use it, they likely have agents all around that area though. Conan and I need to get to the time machine and use it, if I'm correct then it'll be impossible to get close without an amazing distraction, Heiji alone won't be able to do it," He flashed a somewhat devious smile before he went on, "but don't worry, I have a plan."

After seeing that evil grin of his I did not want to ask, I had the feeling that his plan was going to involve something... abnormal. Despite my better judgements I _really_ had to ask, "What plan?"

"First we'll need to call in for back up, I'll explain what they need to do when they arrive... may I use your 'Shinichi' phone? I'm afraid I left mine in the future so that they wouldn't get mixed up..."

Hesitantly I handed him the phone I always use to call as Shinichi, he quickly dialed a number and the ominous feeling I had increased.

"Kaito Kuroba, if I'm not mistaken? This is 'Meitantei-kun'. You recognize my voice right? I'm sure you're confused but I'd like to ask for a favor of you, please come to 21 Beika street immediately, it won't matter if you come in casual clothes or your usual white suit, I already know who you are,"He said in a somewhat threatening tone.

Then he hung up and dialed another number.

This time his tone was more like that of a person asking for an unreasonable favor in the middle of the night, "Hello, Okuda Makoto? This is Shinichi Kudo. I'm sorry for calling so late but an unusual situation has come up and I'd like to ask a favor of you. Hm... oh I see... I'm sorry it'd be difficult to explain it over the phone, would it be possible for you to come to my house so I can explain? That's great, I'll see you soon."

Hanging up on Okuda Makoto he had a victorious seeming smile. In that moment I was able to see right away what he was planning, Hattori seemed to have noticed as well though he was a bit slower on the uptake because he'd had less encounters with the former of those that were called.

"This is ridiculous," I objected, "There's no way a plan like this is going to work!"

"We can try, can't we?" He replied as though he had the utmost confidence that this plan would succeed, "With four 'Shinichi Kudo's and one 'Conan' I think they'll be quite confused... well normally I would suggest having five 'Shinichi' but we'll need 'Conan' so the two of us can get past Vermouth..."

_Just how crazy can he get... He's involving innocent -well actually their both criminals- people in this situation?  
_


	7. The Same Face

**Not much to say this time... this chapter was soooo hard to write. It'll probably be rather boring... but there are some interesting moments so I'm not saying you should skip it or anything!  
**

**I just kind of wanted to involve Okuda Makoto a little bit... no one ever seems to do that in fanfics but I think he's a bit interesting, I mean he did all that just because he though Shinichi messed up a little bit on a deduction... the guy's got some serious_ guts_ ya know? I guess most people think just one Shinichi-doppelganger is enough *cough* Kaito *cough*  
**

**I hope you enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**6. The Same Face  
**

While waiting for the people 'Shinichi' had called to arrive 'Shinichi' and I put Hattori in the Shinichi Kudo mask he'd worn for the off-season Halloween party. I must say it was strange to look at him and see myself talking in an Osaka accent.

The first to arrive was the person that 'Shinichi' had called Kaito. My first impression seeing him was that he looked exactly like me except for his hair which was just a bit messier than mine. He was wearing casual clothes, but if what 'Shinichi' had said earlier was anything to go on this guy was actually Kaitou Kid, strange considering Kaitou Kid has been around for eighteen years but that's not the point.

Okuda Makoto arrived last, being the most normal of the people gathered here his natural response to seeing three Shinichi Kudo was of course surprise, followed by his making an awkward expression as he remembered that he'd locked me in a house in the middle of a forest and tried to ruin my reputation by taking my place.

I found it to be extremely disturbing that there were so many people that could easily pass themselves off as me, It's just not normal for so many people to look this similar.

"Oh, Okuda-san, You've finally made it," 'Shinichi' said, for once not referring to someone in an overly familiar way.

"What's going on here?" Okuda-san asked, once again giving the kind of response that one would expect from the typical person being dragged into something weird.

"Telling the full story would be dangerous, so I'll be brief. There's a place that this kid and I need to get to in order to prevent an evil organization from committing a sinister crime, several hostile members of that organization are surrounding the place we need to go, I called you all here to ask if you'd be willing to act as decoys in order to throw off the members of that organization," 'Shinichi' seemed to have an air of sincerity around him despite the fact that he was skipping the more important details, "It'll be dangerous, if they see me they likely wouldn't hesitate to kill me on the spot but if they see more than one of me they'll probably be curious enough to avoid killing for the sake of trying to capture and question them, even so I can't guarantee that any of you will get out of this uninjured..."

'Shinichi' paused as Okuda-san seemed to be contemplating what he'd said.

"These two... Kaito and Hattori, have already agreed to help with this, it's fine if you don't want to... but..."

"I'll do it," Okuda-san said after a moment, "I feel like I owe you for what I did back then..."

With that 'Shinichi's plan was complete. The five of us all slept over at the Kudo house that night after 'Shinichi' described how he expected things to happen. And in the morning we put the first phase of 'Plan B' into action.

Kaito and Hattori were given the most dangerous, they wore -respectively- my school uniform and the outfit I was wearing when Gin and Vodka poisoned me to make it believeable that either of them might be the real 'Shinichi Kudo' among us. Okuda-san wore a random outfit from my closet, it probably wouldn't be recognized by anyone from the organization but maybe the people that had searched my house for signs of life. Meanwhile 'Shinichi' wore some of Hattori's clothes, hopefully they would think he was an obvious fake as the real one wouldn't be stupid enough to rush at them with a kid in tow.

We arrived in the area where the time machine was on motorcycles (I rode with 'Shinichi'), none of us wore helmets as all of us having the same face would be completely useless if we covered them up. It wasn't initially obvious but there were members of the Black Organization all over the area just as predicted.

Following the plan 'Shinichi' and I fell back as the others proceeded to make a scene. Before long each of them was followed by an organization member. There was also one after 'Shinichi' and I, but as predicted the one following us was Vermouth, with that he and I would be able to safely make it to the time machine... probably.

The diversion was a total success, 'Shinichi' and I made it all the way to the time machine and Shinichi gave a signal to the others to tell them that it was okay for them to go now. Meanwhile Vermouth confronted us.

"Silver Bullet-kun? And Who's this?"

"As if you couldn't guess it? Of course I'm this guy's future self, Chris-chan," 'Shinichi' replied to her, apparently she was yet another person that he referred to in an overly familiar way, just what happens between she and I in the future for him to call her that...?

"You've come to change something then?" She said in a tone that somehow seemed both uncaring and sad at the same time.

"That's right, Chris-chan, so you better not get in my way. You know I'll do whatever it takes when I've decided to do something... or maybe you haven't known me long enough to know that yet?"

"No, I'm quite aware of that Silver Bullet-kun," She said with a little laugh, "Well I won't try and stop you this time, go ahead and get in your time machine."

Hesitantly we obliged, not saying a word in reply.

There were no words to describe inside of the 'time machine', it wasn't the same as what you'd usually see in movies but it also didn't seem different than that. If I had to compare it to anything I would say it looked like a strange cross between a computer from the seventies and a roller coaster cart, yeah that doesn't really give much of an image does it... whatever you're picturing is nowhere near what I saw.

"I'm sorry to do this but since this is your first time you'll get time-sick if you're conscious, we don't have time to waste on that so..."

He hit me really hard on the back of my head. I could feel my senses slipping away almost immediately, my consciousness was fading out... as my vision blurred I could see 'Shinichi' messing with various buttons and knobs on the time machine's control panel.

The last thing I felt before everything became black was an intense nausea.


	8. The Mistake That Was Plan B

**Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out it was even harder to write than the last one. I used the manga to reference for the last part so it should be mostly accurate, I cut some of the unnecessary dialogue though.**

**We get to see some of Conan's amazing acting skills, and perhaps the most dangerous mistake he's made in his entire detective carrer.  
**

**Plus there's a cliffhanger. _*dun, dun, dun, duuuun*_  
**

**I hope you enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**7. The Mistake That Was Plan B  
**

I woke up on the ground, still groggy from both the nausea of time-sickness and the pain of being knocked out, neither 'Shinichi' or the time machine were in sight. I sat up, discovering a note and a backpack that only contained clothing and one of those medicine containers that has seven sections with the days of the week marked on it.

The note was simple:_ You were taking a while to wake up so I went ahead of you. Remember your job is to distract the Shinichi of this time period before that event occurs, if necessary you can tell him the truth, I plan to do so afterward anyway, however he likely won't believe you so if it comes to it you can use these for proof. Be careful._

Upon further inspection the medicine container instead of having the days of the week marked on it had _"1,2,6,12,24,3,X"_ written on the different sections respectively. There was no doubt, the 'medicine' inside was an improved -but still imperfect- antidote to Apotoxin 4869 from his time period, the markings were probably different versions or periods of time; he said to be careful because he couldn't be sure exactly how they would effect me who wasn't yet as close as he was to being immune.

_Seriously... he should have just come a bit earlier and waited for me to wake up. We have a time machine so we have plenty of time to spare...__ Well he did say that we would split up after arriving in this time period, I guess this was his way of making sure I wouldn't interfere with his part of the plan._

The first thing I did was try to ascertain my position, I was in Tropical land, hidden by some shrubbery near the mystery coaster. I couldn't help but sigh to myself; _Ugh, Nothing good _ever_ happens at Tropical Land._

I briefly wondered if my watch would be accurate after traveling through time, when I checked it the time seemed about right but I couldn't be sure so I went to find a more reliable source of information to get the correct time from. That's when I ran into the Shinichi and Ran of this time period, _literally_ I was running and accidentally bumped into them.

"Are you okay, kid?" that Shinichi asked. _Of course he wouldn't recognize me at this time 'Conan' didn't yet exist._

_It's finally starting to feel like I'm actually in the past...  
_

"Uh huh, I'm fine," I replied in my best 'I'm definitely not actually older than you' voice yet.

I was hit with a wave of nostalgia as I reminisced about when I had been the me that I was now meeting, although when I had been at Tropical land with Ran I hadn't met Conan... _Oh! Right, I have a job to do here!_

I continued speaking in a childish tone, "ne ne, niichan what time is it?"

"Just two til the park closes," He replied looking at his watch.

"Thanks niichan," I replied as I ran off, only to hide in a nearby bush to follow them. _If I remember correctly the park was about to close when I saw Vodka rushing to that meeting there's still some time before I have to distract him..._

From where I was hidden I could hear Ran say, "Hey Shinichi, didn't that kid look kinda like you as a child?"

"You think so?" He replied.

I felt extremely creepy, not only because I was able to see Shinichi and knew that it was definitely me but also because I was following him (my past self) and Ran on our date... I was practically stalking my own past self, there should be a limiter on just how strange time travel is allowed to make a situation became, and this event should definitely be past that limiter.

After I had suffered through watching my own date for an hour and a half I lost patience and decided that it'd be best for me to start distracting him at that point. I went up to my past self from behind and tugged childishly on his pants leg.

"Ne ne, you're that nice niichan from before right?" I asked in an almost disturbingly kid-like tone, "will you help me find my mommy?"

If I give him a mystery to solve then he won't be able to walk away, even if he does happen to see Vodka run away then he might be to absorbed in finding my nonexistent mother to think anything of it.

"Alright, I'll help you find her," He said with a smile -_hehe, no you won't, she's not real._- he continued, "I'm a detective after all. What's your name, and what does she look like?"

"Really? Niichan is a detective? Could it be... you're that awesome Shinichi Kudo that's always on tv?" I had to say, but it felt like I was making fun of myself so I answered his questions without waiting for a reply, "My name is Conan Edogawa. Mommy is kinda short and she has black hair that's really short and swirly, she's a bit fat -but don't tell her that-, oh and she wears reeeaally thick glasses that could probably block bullets."

_That should be good enough for a description of a nonexistent person. If he (I?) manage to find anyone like that It'll be kind of amazing... _

"And where did you last see your Mom?" The Shinichi of this time asked.

"When she went to go buy me an Ice cream, I waited and waited but she never came back..."

That led Shinichi on a wild goose chase that took twenty of the remaining thirty minutes until the park was supposed to close until he'd determined that my mother had likely abandoned me.

I knew I had to distract him for another ten minutes, I really hated myself for what I was about to say, but after creepily watching their date I couldn't think of any better distraction.

"Ne ne, Shinichi-niichan... do you like Ran-neechan?"

Immediately they both blushed furiously as though someone had slashed their faces open- okay maybe I do see to many murders... maybe comparing their faces to tomatoes would be better, it'd at least be more normal...

"What would make you think that... Conan-kun?" Shinichi managed to stutter after regaining some amount of his composure.

After a minute or two of awkward chatter Shinichi dragged me away under the guise of a boy-to-boy talk to ask if it was really that obvious that he liked Ran, but before he managed to say anything we overheard something that I _really_ wish we hadn't heard.

"Here you go, the film of your company's gun smuggling. You shouldn't be so naughty." Vodka. I could tell right away.

"Shut up! Compared to the stuff that you guys do, we're..."

"I wouldn't say any more, for your sake..."

Crouching in a bush with Shinichi I couldn't help but panic. _This is exactly what I was supposed to be keeping him from seeing... Why didn't I pay more attention to where we were...?_

"Your detective game... Is over!"


	9. Plan B, Side B

**Probably the hardest chapter to write yet... why did I decide to make it so hard on myself! 'It'll be interesting if there's three of him at once' I said... 'Oh, no one would ever suspect that to happen' I said... geez I may end up writing myself into a corner... well it's worth it if you random strangers enjoy it.  
**

**This chapter is different from all the others so far, It shouldn't take you too long to notice. Oh and this time I didn't use refferences for the dialouge from 'that event'... but it's still probably somewhat accurate...  
**

**you probably already noticed but to make it easy on everyone the one from the future is 'Shinichi' the one that has already been shrunk is Conan and the one from the time period they're currently in is Shinichi. I know that with three Shinichi Kudo's this paradox is bound to get a bit confusing but I'll try to keep it reader friendly as possible so you can tell what's happening.  
**

**I hope you enjoy and please review (it'll help me find proper motivation).  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**8. Plan B, Side B  
**

We had just arrived in the past, the time was just after noon. _There's plenty of time to spare until that time..._

My companion (Conan, or the younger me) was still unconci- no let's just say he was still _sleeping_. Even if I had nothing better to do than wait around for him to wake up, it would have only made me anxious, there would really be no point in it. I left a note where he would be able to find it so that he wouldn't be too confused when he woke up.

The first thing I did was change into a pair of clothes that was identical to what I had been wearing here in this time, I had stored the outfit in the time machine just in case Plan B became necessary. I left Heiji's clothes that I had been wearing until then in a children's backpack along with an improved antidote to Apotoxin 4869 for Conan to use if things didn't quite go as planned, though I wasn't worried that it would be necessary.

I myself had very little to do, I would have distracted the me of this time period myself rather than do what I was going to be doing but the problem is he would have recognized me and questioned it to much. 'Conan' on the other hand he won't recognize because he doesn't know that he is going to shrink and have to live his life as a child for quite some time. Really the biggest reason that I had to be here for Plan B to work was that I was the only one who knew how to operate the time machine, other than that I really had nothing I had to do.

That doesn't mean I didn't intend to do anything. Gin and Vodka were both here at a time when they wouldn't yet expect me to be a significant threat, not only that but I knew where they would be and when while they were here, I couldn't still call myself a detective if I let an opportunity like this pass by.

I would have to try to use this to my advantage. Maybe I could get them to be caught by the police that are still around because of the murder that happened today...

I tried to make an appropriate plan while I waited for that time to come, but there really wasn't much to do besides witness the event and while witnessing take pictures as proof to show the police (or perhaps FBI) later. Sure I could have found Megure-keibu and told him that I 'overheard' the men in black from the roller coaster say something that led me to beileve that they would do something in that area at that time, but that plan would easily be ruined if Megure-keibu ran into the me of this time period and tried to talk to him about what I had overheard.

So as the time for me to act drew closer I simply waited without telling anyone my intentions.

By the time that 'that time' arrived I was ready.

When I saw Vodka run around the corner I followed him silently, not having to worry about telling Ran to go home this time. I was in the same position I had been last time (yeah not my best move) but I was prepared for Gin to attack if that occured again. I was confident that things wouldn't go as they had last time because I had gained more experience since then.

But there was one thing I wasn't expecting, one slight miscalculation.

"I came alone! Just like you guys said! Now give me the film!" said the nervous guy that the black organization had been blackmailing.

_Ugh... What's this feeling... Oh no it's... Crap, crap, crap!_

"hold your horses, you'll get it. Give me the money first," Vodka replied. Hesitantly the nervous man handed Vodka the briefcase.

_This is the same feeling I had at 'that' time... Paradox Syndrome... Darn it! ... I'm going to forget again, huh?_

The man in black opened the briefcase and looked carefully at the money inside, after a short moment he said, "Alright, looks legit. Here you go, the film of your company's weapon smuggling. You shouldn't be so naughty."

_'gun smuggling'... 'film'... This is blackmail! These guys are involved in some pretty sketchy business..._

"Shut up! Compared to what you guys do, this is..."

_'Compared to what you guys do' eh? Seems like I was right to think that those two guys in black were suspicious earlier... Just who are they?_

"I wouldn't say any more, for your sake..."

It was at that time that the second man in black came up from behind me an hit me over the head.

"Your detective game... is over!"

I was still conscious, barely, but my body wouldn't move.

I could barely make out what those two men in black were saying, something about an untested poison that couldn't be traced...

_ This is it huh? I'm really going to die._

_This is the end of meitantei Shinichi Kudo._

...

The Shinichi of this time period next to me tensed, he didn't seem to have even noticed that the guy they were about to poison looked just like him nor did he seem to be listening when they called the doppelganger in question a detective brat, he probably intended to stop Gin and Vodka. Of course I wanted to help him to, but because I was more aware of what was really going on I knew better, I knew there was no way that a confused past me and I rushing in with no plan would be able to handle Gin and Vodka.

I whispered to him quietly enough that even Gin wouldn't have heard, not bothering to keep up my childish facade, "Don't. Those two are dangerous, if they notice you you'll be killed, Shinichi."

Shinichi seemed startled by my sudden mature tone. He opened his mouth to reply to me but couldn't seem to find the right wording for what he wanted to say.

"I'll explain later. For now we have to stay hidden," I said not quite sure what he would have asked. Hesitantly I added, "don't worry he won't die from that."

The Shinichi beside me despite his confusion did as I asked and remained somewhat calm, he watched as the situation unfolded with a gaze that made it clear he didn't quite trust me, but that was to be expected.

I wondered how I managed to make myself sound so confident when in reality I was worried for 'Shinichi', sure he'd taken Apotoxin 4869 and survived once and that was twelve years ago for him, by now his body had definitely become used to the poison... but could he survive a second dosage? I wasn't so sure. Even if he did survive would he shrink? What will happen to the future because of this...?

_Why did 'Shinichi' let himself get poisoned in the first place? He should have known what was about to happen... unless... Paradox Syndrome? Did he forget everything that happens after Tropical land?_

_Crap. He was the only one that knew how to work the time machine._


	10. It IS Complicated

**Hahaha two updates in one day... wow. I clearly have too much free time on my hands.  
**

** it looks like this story is going to run for longer than I thought it would... but it's interesting so far right? Well we just crossed the point of the main issue so this is where it really will start to become complicated... you really can't say I didn't warn you though. It's kinda in the title.  
**

**My initial plan only covered the first two or three chapters and the three most recent ones, everything in the middle was my attempt to try to connect the events so it wouldn't seem too sudden... in other words I haven't quite figured out the ending yet, I'll just be making it up as I go but I'll take stuff from the earlier and later chapters to make it look like it was planned all along ^v^  
**

**I hope you enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**9. It IS Complicated  
**

Gin and Vodka left soon after giving 'Shinichi' the poison. At that time Shinichi and I emerged from the bushes to check him, he hadn't quite shrunk (yet?) but his skin was hot like he had lava running through his bloodstream.

It didn't take Shinichi very long to realize that the poison victim in front of him looked exactly like him, the clothing was even the same, naturally this brought up more questions from him than answers but rather than asking me he was trying to investigate on his own.

I briefly wondered what would happen if I slipped 'Shinichi' some of the Antidote to Apotoxin 4869 while he still hadn't shrunk yet, would the antidote be able to counteract the not yet active poison? Ultimately I decided against trying that just in case it would have been too much shock for his body to handle, besides his body should have already developed some amount of immunity to the antidotes (and possibly the poison as well) there would be no telling what would happen.

There wasn't anything I could do to help 'Shinichi' it was up to his body whether or not he could handle the second dose of Apotoxin 4869, this wasn't something I could interfere with. I could only hope he'd survive, and somehow over come the Paradox Syndrome or else I'd be stuck in this time period forever (or at least until time catches up to the time I left from).

I decided to take the moment to talk to Shinichi, "I can't give you all the details... but I'm you from the future (or at least I was, invariably the future has probably been changed a good bit by what just happened) and that guy right there is me from further in the future. What just happened to him was originally going to happen to you, we'd come to this time period to change that."

Shinichi didn't respond, he was analyzing everything I said carefully as he examined 'Shinichi'. Chances are he didn't believe me about time travel not even with such solid proof sitting right in front of him, of course I'd been slow to believe as well.

"Text Ran and tell her to go home without you, you can say something like that you found a lead on 'Conan's' mother if she asks why."

He glanced at me questioningly, "Why should I do that? Shouldn't we be calling the police and an ambulance."

"I told you already, he's not going to die from that. That poison -it's called Apotoxin 4869- was given to you before we'd come back to change the past, the fact that I -the future you- am alive proves that it won't kill you. At this point it's to late to involve the police, Gin and Vodka have already they won't be alone anymore, and if this 'Shinichi' gets in an ambulance it'll be disastrous!" I replied, careful to not go too deeply into the subject of time travel because it would be bad if I got up with Paradox Syndrome, "At this rate Ran will be worried about you, but you can't go with her right now because I need your help, so you need to do what you can to get her to go home alone without worrying. Alright?"

He was taken aback by my outburst, and still seemed to be shocked that I spoke with such an adult tone despite my childish acting earlier, but he seemed to understand that no normal child would be so calm in such a situation and that no rational person would be able to make up such a ridiculous scenario, and took that as temporary proof that I was telling the truth. Hesitantly he did as I asked and called Ran to let her know that he had some urgent business to attend to and that she should just go home alone.

"If you're really my future self like you claim to be then why are you... a primary schooler?" He asked not long after hanging up on Ran. I had expected him to ask that, it was the most natural question for anyone to ask in this situation.

"It's a side effect of the poison," I stated, he looked at me for a moment as he decided whether or not it was possible for a person to shrink because of poison, before he said anything I continued, "In any case we should get out of here before the patrol cops search the area, if they find the three of us it'll be hard to explain. Either your (my) house or the professor's would be best."

"Alright, but explain everything properly once we get there alright?"

I agreed, but worried that I wouldn't be able to.

He carried 'Shinichi', who at this point still hadn't shrunk and was unconscious but didn't seem to be dead, and managed to get a taxi to come pick us up. He gave the taxi driver the professor's address and from that point we were silent.

_I've already said a lot that related to the future and time travel, if I wind up getting Paradox Syndrome then I won't be able to explain anything and the current Shinichi won't know even half of what's going on._

_ He wasn't poisoned but the organization will now think that Shinichi Kudo was poisoned, Haibara once mentioned that they checked my house twice to see if there were any signs of life after I was poisoned because they'd never confirmed my death. He doesn't know anything about the Black organization... it'll be dangerous if they manage to confirm that he's still alive unaffected by the poison._

_Not to mention now that the future has changed 'Shinichi' and I could disappear any minute now, so I need to at least explain to him about the Black Organization before I disappear._

_ Please... just let me stay myself for long enough to tell him what he needs to know. It's fine if I disappear or forget everything after that.  
_

I hardened my resolve to explain everything as we arrived at the professor's house.


	11. You Don't Know The Half Of It

**I think the word of the day is Shinichi... it came up so often in the beginning of this chapter that it isn't even funny, but considering that at this point there are three of him that's natural right?  
**

**A bit of a long chapter this time... but it'll probably seem pointless, it's not I promise.  
**

**I hope you enjoy and please review... There haven't been any reveiws for a while now, I hope I'm still doing well...  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**11. You don't know the half of it  
**

Shinichi knocked on the professor's door holding 'Shinichi', who shrank just as the taxi was driving off, in the same way that you would hold a football... not a very orthodox way to carry someone that still had a fever from being poisoned but I'm sure 'Shinichi' would forgive him, he was pretty surprised seeing a person shrink. At least now he was almost completely convinced that what I was telling him was at least somewhat true.

The professor answered and the three of us came in, Shinichi laid 'Shinichi' on the couch.

Shinichi tried to explain everything he'd witnessed at Tropical Land and what I'd told him, but the professor was confused enough as it was seeing Shinichi walk in with two nearly identical (because I still wore my glasses, and was a little bit bigger) children in tow, I'm sure it didn't help that 'Shinichi' and I had the same face as Shinichi, and 'Shinichi' was even wearing the same clothes though they no longer fit him.

"Now, now, Shinichi, what is going on?" the professor asked, he sounded worried. I guess he was able to at least understand that we were in a serious situation.

"Like I just said: while I was at Tropical Land with Ran, I found this kid and after searching for his mom for about twenty minutes I thought that maybe he was abandoned, I was about to ask him something when we overheard a blackmail case and we hid in the bushes so that the culprits wouldn't notice us. Then that other kid came along -but at that point he was a teenager- and the people dressed in black that we were watching saw him and gave him some kind of poison that made him shrink to that body..." Shinichi did a good job of summarizing everything, "After the men in black left the kid with the glasses said that he was me from the future, the the other kid was _his_ future self, and that they had come to this time from the future to prevent me from being poisoned -and shrinking- by those guys dressed in black."

"That's right," I added, "Unfortunately it seems like 'Shinichi''s part in the plan failed, though he really should have been able to avoid being poisoned."

"But he looks like a primary schooler..." the professor started.

"That's because of the poison. It shrank my body, I've been living like this for almost a year now so I'm used to it. By the way you can call me 'Conan' to prevent confusion," I sighed.

"Oh right, at Tropical Land you had said your name was 'Conan Edogawa'," Shinichi recognized, "it's a pretty stupid name now that I think about it... is it your codename?"

_Hey you have no right to call my name stupid, it was you that made it up, there was a lot of pressure._ I calmly replied, "It's more like an alias. When I realized that I had shrunk... that would be tonight one year ago my time, I tried to get into my house but couldn't even reach the door to open it when professor Agasa came along I managed to convince him that I was indeed Shinichi Kudo and asked him to try to create an antidote to the poison that made me like this..."

"Then I guess he couldn't make an antidote right? If you're still like that..." Shinichi asked.

"That's right, but there's more. We came to the conclusion that if the men that had poisoned me knew that I was still alive they would come to finish the job, so it was decided that I would hide my identity while trying to fight against their organization- ah yeah I later figured out that they were an organization not just those two. Well while the professor and I were talking Ran came in and of course she didn't recognize me, in order to keep her from becoming involved I hid my identity from her and on the spot made up the name 'Conan Edogawa'," I said, I paused to catch my breath before continuing, "Since then I've been living at the Mouri detective agency under that alias, making Kogoro Mouri become a more and more famous by solving cases from the shadows in order to get clues about the black organization."

Shinichi was blushing, "wait... did you just say... you've been living at Ran's house for nearly a year?"

"It's not like I've done anything perverted, she thinks of 'Conan' as a little brother," Suddenly I also blushed as I remembered that one time in the bath, "... I've had to act like a little kid to make the whole thing convincing. I've even been going to primary school."

"Calm down... er Conan-kun..."

"Right... there's still more I have to tell you..."

"Don't..." 'Shinichi' said suddenly, apparently having regained consciousness, "It'll be no good if both of us lose our future memories. Let me, I've already forgotten enough of what happens after your time, but I still remember most of what came before, if you fill in any holes it should be fine."

"How would it be fine? If you keep talking to me and Shinichi about the future you won't be able to remember anything relating to it! If that happens we won't be able to return to our original times!" I objected.

"Eh? Did I not tell you before we left...?" 'Shinichi' asked, with a slightly morbid expression.

"Um... it's great that the other one is awake and all... but what are you guys talking about?" Shinichi asked clearly confused by our time travel talk.  
I ignored him,_ it seems there was something important that 'Shinichi' hasn't told me regarding the time machine, until I figure out what it is Shinichi will have to wait._

"Didn't tell me what?"

'Shinichi' sighed, "That time machine only goes to the past, we can't return to the future with it anyway."

"What? Why didn't you tell me that?" I asked, a little more annoyed than I should have been. I already realized the answer before he said it.

"I went to the past with the intention of disappearing when the future changed... I didn't expect to need to return to the future. I'm sorry..." He flashed me a weak, innocent smile, "I guess I sort of got you involved without you knowing anything... I hope you'll forgive me, otherwise it'll be pretty awkward if time ever manages to catch up with us..."

_His laid back personality is still kind of annoying... no matter what he says I end up with the feeling that I was just told something extremely important in a casual tone..._

"A-re-re? Is time going to catch up with us? I thought we were going to just disappear?"

"Excuse me, but would one of you please explain? I don't have a clue what you two are talking about!" Shinichi seemed to be a bit annoyed that he was being ignored. He probably realized that our conversation was important and that's why he didn't interrupt before, but because he didn't know quite as much as we did he'd gotten lost... which only annoyed him more.

'Shinichi''s smile turned into a smirk, I could already guess what he was about to say, "Alright, I'll explain everything you need to know, but first things first... the future I came from is the time twelve years from now, that would mean that even though I look like this now... I'm actually twenty-eight years old. So since Conan over there is already seventeen, that means that the sixteen year old Shinichi Kudo is actually the youngest person here."


	12. From Now On

**It's been difficult trying to make it clear who is talking... I think I found a solution to the naming crisis. You'll get to see that solution, along with a pun that may be lost in translation...  
**

**Well with this chapter everyone finally seems to understand the situation so I get to make all three of them ramble a little bit! It's not just the oldest one rambling anymore!  
**

**I hope you enjoy and please review (do I have to beg?)  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**12. From now on  
**

'Shinichi' -or maybe I should call him 'Conan' now- explained to Shinichi everything that had happened after the point where I had left off. That is to say everything about the black organization, including Haibara Ai (who in this time period is still Miyano Shiho) who developed Apotoxin 4869 but had become one of my (his... our?) greatest allies; he also talked about all the people that had been helpful with our situation -whether they knew who 'Conan' was or not- like Hattori, the FBI (specifically Jodie, Camal, and Akai Shuichi), Mizunashi Rena (and naturally Eisuke Houndou as well), and even Kaitou Kid (or Kaito, he mentioned a few scrapes with him that hadn't happened yet in my time and that eventually he became an ally.)

By the time 'Conan' had finished explaining Shinichi seemed to have a pretty good idea of precisely what the situation was.

"So basically I'm in danger because that organization thinks I was poisoned with Apotoxin 4869 -which I wasn't but a future me was, I won't be able to live in my house because they'll search there for signs of life, so I need to get somewhere out of the public eye and hide there for a while," Shinichi recapped, "Also you two may or may not disappear or lose your memories any moment now?"

"That's about right, It doesn't matter that you have the advantage of knowing they're after you... if that organization is trying to kill you there's very little chance you'll survive, it's for the best that they think you died," 'Conan' confirmed, "I don't think Conan or I will be disappearing any time soon though. I think that our becoming directly involved in this time and telling you guys almost everything about the future is counteracting the normal flow of time, and possibly Paradox Syndrome as well... I can't be certain but the timeline may have branched into a timeline parallel to our original future. Theoretically, we became deeply involved in an extremely important event so whatever entity decides what's _supposed_ to happen determined that if our existence's were erased it would become complicated..."

_Isn't it already complicated?_ I asked myself, before saying aloud, "What I'm most worried about right now is what we will be doing from now on? As 'Conan' and I mentioned our original plan was to keep the Black Organization from poisoning 'Shinichi Kudo', we more or less succeeded in that but because they think they poisoned you the situation has hardly changed. The only real difference is that there are three of us now..."

"Normally I would have suggested that I take on the role of 'Conan Edogawa' and you two inconspicuously fight the organization... but because Ran met 'Conan Edogawa' at Tropical Land and he was a year older than I am right now that would be inconsistent, what you said at Tropical Land also wouldn't fit with the back story that I'm one of the professor's (or mom's) relatives. For the time being you're going to have to be Conan Edogawa, you can make up a back story as you go or keep your current one, if it's alright with the professor you should stay at his house," 'Conan' sighed, "We'll have to come up with a new plan... although those of us who've shrunk won't have to worry about our identity as 'Shinichi Kudo' being revealed because Shinichi is still himself we still will need somewhere to stay... that means I'm going to need an _new_ fake identity..."

"There was a case where Mom took me as Conan to one of her friends house and claimed I where her second son that was secretly born in America, right? You can just use that as a back story but what should the name be...?" I suggested.

"That's a good idea. Let's see... if I'm Shinichi's younger brother... 'Shinni' maybe?" He paused hopefully for a moment before sighing again, "No that sounds way too much like 'shini' people joke about people always dying near me enough as it is... I can't help it, I'm a detective cases come to me..."

That's_ the only problem you have with it?_

"How about 'Shinji'?" The professor suggested.

The three of us all turned to look at the professor then looked at each other sharing an unspoken '_that's actually not a bad idea_' with our gaze before facing the professor again. Leave it to the professor to make a useless pun on the spot.

"It comes from 'ji' being a possible pronunciation of two, and plays off of the meaning of 'ji' as 'grandfather' because I'm older than I look, right?" The person that was about to be named with a bad pun laughed sarcastically, "I guess it'll work, but it feels like you're making fun of me."

"Then from now on you're six year old 'Shinji Kudo'. That'll make things somewhat easier."

"Now we just need to figure out whether or not we want to openly declare war on the organization," Shinichi said calmly. The professor didn't quite seem to understand.

I decided it was my turn to explain, "At this point we have to basic choices; Shinichi can either try to convince the organization he's dead by going somewhere under the radar for a while in preparation for a surprise attack, or he can live with Shinji in his own house - openly declaring war."

"You definitely shouldn't do anything dangerous, Shinichi!" The professor said determinedly, the comment was addressed to all three of us even if he'd only referred to the one. To that none of us could reply... there really wasn't a way to get out of this without danger.

Shinji seemed to be thinking something over very seriously, then he suddenly shouted, "Crap!"

"Eh? What's wrong... Shinji?" I asked, slightly worried.

"I just realized... I'm going to have to go through primary school, again..._ Again_."

"Well, we don't have to worry about being found out as 'Shinichi Kudo' this time... so it should be fine even if we stand out by skipping grades..."

"No, we need to keep the fact that Shinichi is still alive a secret from the organization, so I need to go live with Ran and solve cases (via 'Sleeping Kogoro) and I need to go to Teitan Elementary and join the shonen tantei as 'Shinji Kudo' just like I did as 'Conan Edogawa', otherwise Shiho Miyano will have no reason to come here," He replied with a strange spark of determination but a gloomy tone.

"You can't mean..."

"I want to try to keep the current timeline's future as similar to our timeline as possible -though there will be a few necessary changes- so that we'll be able to better predict the Black Organization's movements until we decide to openly declare war on them," He said as his gloomy expression turned into a rather devious smile that I had seen once before, "This... is Plan C."

Plan A and Plan B had both been failures... well 'the third time's the charm', though I'm afraid in this situation 'three strikes you're out' might be more suitable. By doing something like this, is it really possible to succeed?


	13. A Transpiration Of Events

**This chapter is really long and a bit difficult... time skips, POV changing, you'll figure it out. Basically this chapter is a huge time skip that's going to cover some changes that were made to the time stream because Shinji was playing the role that was originally 'Conan' and Conan was now living with the professor, while Shinichi has disappeared to who-knows-where.  
**

**I probably should have split this up into separate chapters for each event, then I could have made each event longer and made them more interesting... but none of this is really important enough for me to turn this into four chapters, if you disagree please just be happy with a chapter twice as long as previous ones...  
**

**Apparently Shinji specializes in faking his own death... for him it's happened three times now...  
**

**the detectiveconanworld site was down yesterday (when I was writing this chapter) so I couldn't do much research for the events... well I was changing them up a bit anyway but it would have been nice to be more accurate with certain parts.  
**

**I hope you all enjoy and please review. Thanks a lot to the people who have reviewed so far, especially Syrus07-chan! Arigato ****gozaimasu**, everyone!  


**-._.-._.-**

**13. A Transpiration Of Events  
**

For whatever reason Shinji and I wound up in the same class (mostly because there's no school record for either of us so to avoid being illegal we should just start at the beginning, so even if I'm nearly a year older physically we wound up in the same grade) which naturally caused quite a stir because of our similar appearances, everyone kept asking if we were related -Genta even asked if one of us was a clone.

When the shonen tantei was eventually formed both of us became members.

Shinji mostly tried to keep up the appearance of being a normal kid- though it was quite clear he was anything but, this being his third time going through primary school- even the other members of the shonen tantei were able to recognize his detective skill, cheating though it might be that both he and I knew most of the mysteries solutions from previous experience. I kept a low profile but I stood out more than Shinji, I would openly do deductions as the primary school detective Conan Edogawa, even if we were keeping it a secret that Shinichi was alive my identity wasn't at risk because Shinji would naturally look more suspicious I was attempting to draw some attention away from him.

The two of us often walked to school together and talked about weird things that went way over the other primary schooler's heads, and before long we had gotten used to our new lives. All the while the first event we needed to change was fast approaching...

The billion yen robbery case

The case involving Akemi Miyano (under the alias Masami Hirota), Haibara's sister, the case she died during. If I sat back and let her die again when I -we- could change it... that would be unthinkable, I'd seen Haibara cry over Akemi's death... that was something I didn't want to see again if possible.

But preventing her death could change the course of the future significantly, especially because this case was involved with the black organization, and also because the victim was not only Haibara's sister whose death made her decide to leave the organization she was also the girlfriend of Akai Shuichi whose death made him even more determined to fight against the organization than before.

For the sake of Plan C the most logical answer would have been to let her die. BUT logic doesn't matter when it's telling you it's okay for a person to die, there's nothing that can justify a person's death. It would be ideal if we could make it look like she died but was actually still alive, we would be able to tell Haibara that when she eventually betrayed the organization and thereby became Haibara... but such an idealistic outcome isn't realistic.

I'd done the calculations in my head a hundred times over. I couldn't think of a way to make it appear that Akemi Miyano had died that would be convincing enough for even Gin to fall for, sure he believed that I'd died but that was an untested poison they didn't know that shrinking was a possible side effect so they figured I would just die plus when they checked later 'Shinichi Kudo' was nowhere to be found. Akemi on the other hand would be shot, it'd be difficult to save her much less make it look like we didn't. I couldn't create a plan.

Shinji however did, though it was dangerous, and a little bit stupid.

I'm not sure how he managed to do it but Shinji knocked Akemi out with the tranquilizer watch and disguised himself as her (apparently since allying with Kaitou Kid he'd learned a few odd skills, in his current form he could probably give the phantom thief a run for his money as he would be able to disguise as children as well). When the time came it was Shinji that stood before Gin and Vodka.

"Bring my sister here and I'll tell you where the money is."

It didn't phase Gin who was already pointing his gun, "We've already got a pretty good guess. This is your last chance."

"If you're going to kill me anyway," Somehow he had the perfect tone of a distressed girl, "Please... let me die by the poison that my sister made!"

Gin laughed but didn't seem to mind the idea, he took a capsule of the poison (that he was apparently still conveniently carrying around) and tossed it to the disguised Shinji. Shinji faked like he was hesitant but the boldly swallowed the capsule, he wasn't actually going to swallow it there was a mechanism in the disguise that would stop it from going down his throat, but just in case it did he thew a capsule of the antidote in at the same time to counteract the effects.

Moments after swallowing he convincingly acted like a victim of Apotoxin 4869, which was simple enough considering he had experience. Soon footsteps could be heard from around the corner as Ran was arriving on the scene (I sent her a text saying I'd found Masami Hirota), as soon as she arrived I asked her to go call an ambulance. While she was busy with that Shinji switched himself with the real Akemi that was sleeping nearby.

Surprisingly we managed to clear that event without any trouble, Akemi was alive and the organization thought she had died. Later Shinichi contacted Akemi and informed her that the organization believed she was dead and that because of that he would be able to get her sister out of the organization, but until then they could not be in contact, she agreed.

...

The great detective of the west appears

Finally, we'd arrived at a troublesome case. The case itself wouldn't be troublesome, but rather the person that would come barging in, in about... three... two... one...

The door burst open, "Where's Kudo?"

"Shinichi? He's not here," Ran replied.

"Ne, ne, why are you looking *cough* for Shinichi-niichan?" I asked despite knowing the answer. Coincidentally I had a cold just like last time he'd appeared.

"Eh? D'ya got a cold, kid? I've got de perfect medicine ta fix it up," he said as he scrounged around in his bag finally pulling out pikaru, the alcohol could possibly return me to my former form (though I still wasn't certain what would happen because I'd been given a second dose of the poison.)

Although I more than likely still had an immunity to the alcohol's effects I didn't want to risk transforming, after all I still didn't know if I would just turn into the twenty-eight year old Shinichi Kudo or the eighteen year old Conan Edogawa... it would be to risky, I wouldn't be able to explain it if I turned twenty-eight. I replied to the person that was rude enough to offer a child alcohol before introducing himself, "nah *sniffle* I'm already starting to feel better."

"Suit yerself."

"What business do you have with Shinichi? I've already told you he's not here" Ran asked firmly, she'd been talking to Shinichi on the phone just until Heiji'd burst in.

"Well, he hasn't been in de paper's lately, I've even heard he's disappeared."

_No... actually the opposite, there's three of us now._

"What about it?" Ran responded.

"I just wanted ta meet him, ta see if he's actually good enough ta be compared ta me," He said with an almost sinister grin, "The high school detective of the west, Heiji Hattori."

You get the idea, his introduction actually doesn't matter though. The point is I didn't drink the alcohol and was actually feeling a good bit better by the time we'd gotten into the case. This time when Heiji had come close to arriving at the wrong conclusion I was feeling well enough to give hints to lead him in the right direction. It may have been unnecessary, but I confronted him after the case had finished... he had said that he wouldn't leave until he got to meet 'Kudo' after all, besides him knowing my identity would be convenient.

"Come with me, Heiji," I said.

"It's not polite ta address an adult without an honorific ya know, kid," He replied as I grabbed his arm and started to take him over to the house where Conan and the professor were living.

"Shinji Kudo," I said, trying very hard to put up with the child treatment but from him it just felt like he was messing with me, "You should call me Shinji, I'm Shinichi's little brother... or rather, I am Shinichi. I'm only telling you because it's easier on me if you get involved from the beginning..."

With that I introduced Heiji to Conan and the professor, I also called Shinichi and put him on speaker phone so we could explain the entire situation to him. Needless to say he was shocked by the whole affair.

Kaitou Kid's Heist; the Suzuki family's black star pearl

Naturally -as I'd already been through this before- I was well aware that the Ran next to me was actually Kaitou Kid. As entertaining as it likely would have been to point that fact out to everyone that was desperately scrambling around trying to catch that very same Kaitou Kid, I wouldn't dare risk doing such a stupid thing; if I revealed him in front of so many witnesses (I admit I would have been very happy to do so) would ruin any chances of him becoming my ally again in the future, much less my friend.

Actually I'm a bit embarrassed to be standing next to this happy go-lucky guy and calling him my 'friend' while he's wearing a dress. Not to mention he hasn't even met me yet. The epitome of awkwardness.

I sighed before getting back into character, "Ran-neechan, let's go outside. I wanna look at the ocean."

"Ok, Shinji-kun," He said in Ran's voice with a smile. _So... creepy..._

As soon as we got outside I dropped my facade, though not completely.

"Couldn't you have disguised yourself as someone less involved with famous detectives, Kaito?"

He was taken aback at being called 'Kaito' rather than 'Kaitou' or 'Kid' or any number of his other aliases, I could tell that much despite his perfect disguise and poker face. He kept up his disguise, "What are you talking about Shinji-kun?"

"Please just quit it, Kaito, it's disturbing to see you cross dressed like this..." I said bluntly. He sighed, understanding that there was no way that he could convince me that he really was Ran.

"Ah~ How is it, may I ask, that you saw through my disguise?" It was even creepier to hear Kaito's voice coming from Ran's appearance.

"I knew that you were going to disguise as her from the beginning," I sighed, "do you get a kick out of sacrificing your manly pride or something? I may as well add, I know more than just what you were planning for tonight, I know about the heists you have yet to do, and I know who you are. Kaito Kuroba."

He was really shocked, before he'd probably just written me off as a kid that was a bit too smart for his own good. Now... not so much. His poker face slipped if only just a little, "... just who are you?

"For now... Shinji Kudo, tantei sa." I paused for a moment, "You and I have more in common than you know, I think we could help each other out quite a bit. I'll call you later and explain the important parts."

Naturally, that made him very wary of me, but he was also curious so he wound up agreeing.

...

The arrival of Ai Haibara

Shinji and I had a mutual agreement that whichever one of us she suspected of being a shrunken 'Shinichi Kudo' would tell her that she had deduced correctly and that we would wait a bit before dumping the whole 'we actually both are Shinichi Kudo that has shrunk because of your drug, and we're also from the future, and the Shinichi from this time period actually didn't shrink because was caused a paradox,'-thing on her.

There was a fifty-fifty chance of her suspecting either of us, or she may assume that Apotoxin 4869 has an even rarer side effect of splitting people in two and that I was hit by both extremely rare side effects. Shinji being clearly abnormally intelligent for his age would be suspected for his appearance, status as Shinichi's brother that has not been heard of before, and the fact that he didn't stand out much despite all that. My appearance and apparent lack of any relation to Shinichi would make me a clear suspect, if you include the fact that I had become a Primary school detective that solves murder cases it'd be normal to conclude I'm either Shinichi hiding his identity or I'm making myself look suspicious to cover for Shinji who I know the true identity of.

Honestly, the two of us together made it impossible for anyone to be one hundred percent sure that either of us was Shinichi Kudo. So I couldn't help but wonder which conclusion she would come to when the familiar new student was introduced to the class.


	14. At This Point Does Age Even Matter?

**Yeah I know last chapter was pretty... bad. But this one should be better, we'll finally start back into there being something reminiscent of a plot! Oh AND there's a bit of drama if ya know what I mean. Shinji might be a bit too laid back...  
**

**I hope you all enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**14. At this point does my age even matter?  
**

By some convenient twist of fate the only empty seat in the classroom was between Conan and I causing that to be the only possible location for Ai to sit after transferring into the class. Looking at her now I almost couldn't believe that the cute but cool girl beside me was the same as the one I left behind twelve years from now, I must admit knowing how she was in the future made me uneasy seeing her like this.

"I'm Shinji Kudo, it's nice to meet you Ai," I said hopefully with a convincing smile, "I hope we can get along."

She didn't say anything in reply.

"I hope so too, Haibara, I'm Conan Edogawa by the way," Conan introduced himself promptly. Apparently she hadn't met him last night at professor Agasa's house, he probably kept himself out of sight after she showed up because today would be more fun if she hadn't met either of us.

Of course the rest of the shonen tantei had gone into overdrive asking her questions she didn't bother to answer at a speed she couldn't have answered them at even if she had wanted to, they continued this throughout the entire school day as they slowly but surely forced her to join the shonen tantei.

Naturally, that day we got involved with a rather serious case but I'm sure you remember how that went from the original timeline, Conan and I were very careful not to make many changes. Though for our own entertainment we dropped hints about our real identities for Ai, small hints that the normal kids wouldn't have noticed. We even managed to avoid freaking out at the end about the culprit being in the black organization -which she wasn't. Retelling everything would pretty boring so I'll just skip ahead to the three of us walking home.

Ai trailed behind us silently at a distance, still pretending to cry after the case. We were almost to the point where she would likely speak up, both of us ready for whatever she was about to say... but there was a chance she wouldn't say anything with both of us around, she wasn't the type to think that the current situation would even be possible, much less suspect it had happened.

It didn't seem she was going to say anything, with a glance I could tell that Conan had come to the same conclusion. Instead one of us would have to break the silent tension.

"We rescued Akemi Miyano."

Both of us turned around at once. I'll admit the shocked look on her face -still redden and wet from her crocodile tears- was absolutely priceless, she didn't seem to know if she should cry with happiness, accuse us of lying, or just continue to be shocked.

I continued, "I disguised myself as her and suggested to Gin that he should use Apotoxin 4869 to kill me. I didn't actually swallow it at that time though, it probably would have been a disaster if I had."

Conan added, "Don't worry, we left Akemi in the hands of someone that we know can be trusted, the Black organization will -more likely than not- never hear anything about her again."

She stood, tears -happy ones- had began to flood from her eyes, but she didn't speak or move an inch.

"Ah, let's get you home," I suggested, "these days it's not safe for a young lady to be out on the streets alone. We can talk at the professor's house."

I grabbed her hand, which took mine back hesitantly, and began to walk in the direction of the professors house. Conan briefly gave me a questioning look as if to say 'you're holding her hand, are you a pedophile or something?' but he seemed to have decided against saying anything out loud.

I didn't mind very much but his looking at me like that made me wonder how old she actually was, after all she'd never actually told me her real age... Akemi was her older sister she's about twenty-five now, so Ai is definitely younger than that probably between eighteen and twenty-two. Hmmm... doesn't that mean she's actually pretty close to my age?

In the awkward atmosphere it seemed like it was taking forever to reach the professor's house. Each second practically lasted a minute, and when we finally got there her hand was still firmly grasping mine, upon noticing that she was holding my hand after I had relaxed my grip she blushed just slightly (I swear, she really did) and released it.

Meanwhile Conan had already opened the door and shouted inside, "Professor, I'm home! Shinji and Haibara are with me."

_Way to ruin the mood, Conan, Ai had the perfect tsundere routine going on there... right, right, age difference. We're both six get your mind out of the gutter you seven year old. Who cares anyway?_

The three of us went in and were greeted by the professor.

It took quite a while to explain to Ai that Conan and I already knew of who she was and what her situation was, we tried to play it off that we knew so much because we were just really good detectives but she didn't quite believe that, it was a bit of a stretch to begin with. That's when we got to the matter we'd been waiting for; which of us she suspected of being Shinichi Kudo.

"Kudo-kun..." She started but trailed off. I briefly wondered which of us she meant, so far she seemed to be thinking that Conan was Shinichi so it wasn't really clear who she meant by 'Kudo-kun'.

"Um... Call me 'Shinji' okay? If you say 'Kudo' it's to easy to get me mixed up with Shinichi," I said, maintaining a normal attitude, "Or if you'd like you can call me 'Shin-chan'... really anything's fine, as long as you don't call me 'Ji-chan', I'm not old enough to be a grandpa yet."

"Er..." She seemed to be a bit surprised by my weird speech (If I'm going to have a pun for a name I have to make a joke out of it at some point you know...) but eventually she sighed and said, "Both of you, are a bit _too_ smart for your age."

"I think I'm smart enough for my age, I'd be dead by now if I wasn't, it's not my fault if most people aren't."

She looked annoyed by that comment, she stopped beating around the bush and got straight to the point, "Edogawa-kun is Shinichi Kudo, isn't he?"

Conan had a surprised look for only a moment before his expression turned to normal ready to play along, "How did you guess?"


	15. If I Don't Die Tomorrow Can We Hang Out?

**I'd say this is a successful chapter... a few stabbing words, one really ooc comment, an awkward conversation -or two-, and a dramatic lead in to what may-or may not- be the climax! yep a little bit of everything.  
**

**Thank you people that reviewed, it's because of you that I managed to write this chapter even though I have exams coming up and didn't really have a plan for what was going to happen...  
**

**I hope you all enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**15. If I don't die tomorrow can we hang out?  
**

Even if I had been the one that asked her to tell why it was she thought that I was Shinichi Kudo... it didn't call for her to be so blunt about it. Her cold tone sounded merciless, "It was obvious. I figured Shinji-kun couldn't be Shinichi Kudo because he would know better than to live with his childhood friend when people could come to kill him at any moment. Even so... you seem to be a bit stupider than I expected. you probably didn't spend a single minute coming up with that name, did you just look at your bookshelf and use the first name you saw or something, _baka_. You've hardly even disguised yourself, did you really think glasses could hide your identity? Not to mention that while you're supposedly unrelated to Shinichi Kudo you look exactly like him and just so happen to be an genius primary school detective that can solve murders that sometime the police can't solve? From what I heard you're the sort of _unreasonably prideful_ guy that would -despite having been nearly killed- try to live such a flashy lifestyle. I guess there's no helping it, even if you are a genius detective you're an _idiot_."

Every phrase tossed metaphorical knives at either me or Shinji. Who was it that said _'sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you'_? I'd like to stab that person -assuming he's still alive and no one else has already stabbed him- I could probably get away with it... after all the tricks I've seen a locked room murder with an appropriate alibi shouldn't be too difficult...

Ah! Right, that's not important... back to the story.

Shinji was the first to regain his composure, because we'd decided to let her believe whichever of us she thought _was_ Shinichi actually was Shinichi he acted accordingly as Shinichi's little brother would, "That's mean! Shinichi-niichan isn't an idiot, he's the second smartest guy ever!"

I admit; I was curious where he was going with this, but I was stupid to ask, "the second smartest? Who's the first?"

His answer was very simple, and quite possibly true (though I hate to admit it), "Me."

_That doesn't even make since... You're also Shinichi Kudo. _Once again, I got the distinctive feeling that I was actually the older one between the two of us even though I knew that wasn't the case. If he just acted a bit more mature he would be easier to put up with.

"Actually I'm pretty confident that no one will see through my disguise," I said," There are a few more tricks to it than just the glasses you know."

"Oh really?" Haibara said with a questioning tone, clearly unaware of anything that could make it difficult in any way for a person to guess my identity.

"I'll let you try and figure those tricks out on your own, you fell for them after all," I said, probably sounding a bit more mischievous than I meant to. Then I suddenly remembered something that needed to be said, "Oh! You'll want to talk to your sister right? For the sake of neither of you being caught by the Black organization it's better you two don't meet up... but I can call the person she's with and I'm sure he'll let you talk to her."

I knew Haibara would have loved to be able to meet her sister in person, she really loved Akemi... being able to confirm that she really was alive and that this wasn't a really elaborate trick to get her to help me would just be a bonus. However, Haibara knew that pretty soon the Black organization would be coming after her, after 'Sherry', and that if she was anywhere near Akemi then Akemi would be put in danger as well.

She seemed conflicted but knew it was for the best that she only talk on the phone, she hesitantly replied, "I'd like that..."

"Okay," I said as I got out my cell phone and dialed the number for Akai Shuichi (oh, come on, don't tell me you thought she was staying with Shinichi? Haibara would murder me! Akai is definitely the best choice) after asking to speak to Akemi and explaining that her sister was here I handed the phone to Haibara as he passed it to Akemi.

"We'll give you some privacy," Shinji said as he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me away to a corner.

Actually the corner he dragged me to wasn't out of earshot, we could hear what she was saying just as easily as we could have from where we were before, but we didn't actually listen we were busy whispering to each other.

"You're identity was exposed," Shinji laughed at me. Really, he was just proud that she hadn't thought that he was Shinichi Kudo despite being sketchier than I am, it's not as if there weren't plenty of clues to make you think that it could be him instead of me.

"Yeah, so to her you're a -somewhat- normal six year old, no more flirting with her," I said hoping to sound stern, but it came out sounding like a really stupid joke, "We definitely don't need you to go around acting your age."

"Jeez, you sound like our parents," he said in a decidedly teenager-ish tone, "besides I couldn't just sit back and watch her cry like that, it just doesn't suit her at all. Ai should always be tsundere."

_Are you saying you have a thing for tsunderes? _I almost asked aloud, but quickly decided that I didn't want to know the answer to that one. Instead I asked a more concerning question, "And you thought that _flirting_ was the best thing you could do to get her to stop crying?"

"I just did the first thing I thought would work. Okay? Does it really matter anyway?" He asked, he seemed annoyed that I was patronizing him about this.

"Right, I'm sure you didn't just drag me to a corner to brag that you can apparently pass for being twenty-two years younger than you actually are."

"Yeah," He said, his whisper dropping to a quieter tone, "I sent Shinichi a message, now that we've got all our allies together there's no need to keep hiding him much longer... he says he'll be home in a day or two."

"Great," I could feel my expression change into a smug grin like the one Shinji was wearing as I spoke, "We're finally going to take down the organization."

I wonder what I'll do after all of this is over, I can't very well go back to being Shinichi anymore... I'll figure something out, that is... assuming I don't die when we launch our attack against the organization.

...

"Hello, Mouri detec-"

"Hey, Ran. It's me."

"Shinichi!"

"Yeah, of course."

"What are you calling so late for...?"

"I wanted to let you know right away. I've found a lead on the case I've been pursuing so I'll be back in Beika for a bit..."

"YOU'RE COMING BACK?"

"Ahh... don't shout like that, will you?"

"Oh... sorry..."

"Anyway, even though I'm still on a case I'll be back so I can't the whole time... but I was wondering could we... maybe hang out a little bit?"

"Of course we can."


	16. What just happened?

**After leaving you on that note, we come in on a completely different note. I'm warning you, this is a very sudden change in mood. This isn't a gag story there's just a lot of comic relief in the chapters, but probably not in this one. ^v^ I wonder... will you feel the same way about this that Conan does?  
**

**For those of you who actually read my bold rammblings and actually review... Once again I seem to have come up with two endings, but this time it would be hard to do both so since I can't pick I'll let you guys pick (if you care) without knowing the details at all. It's either a 'happy ending' or a 'dark ending'. You can tell me which one you want via review or a message would work too.  
**

**I hope you all enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**16. What... just happened?  
**

The last thing I expected to happen when Shinji, Haibara and I were walking home from school... is exactly what happened. Up until that point we'd managed to keep this timeline and the timeline that Shinji and I had come from relatively consistent, it made no sense for something different to be happening... at least not to this extent.

In the middle of the most deserted area that we pass by between the school and our houses a black Porsche 911 suddenly drove up next to us, the door opened, a persons arm reached out and grabbed Shinji and Haibara before any of us could react. They were violently dragged into the car as the door slammed shut.

And the Porsche drove away just as suddenly as it had come.

For the moment, I was speechless. The shock of it all paralyzed me.

As my mind began to clear and I started to relax -I use 'relax' loosely here, I was still quite worried about Haibara and Shinji's safety- I could only say one thing, "What in the world... just happened?"

By that time it was too late for me to attempt to follow the car, even on the jet skateboard I wouldn't have been able to catch up. I decided that the best course of action would be to run home and tell the professor what had happened, Shinichi would be arriving soon, once he did he and I could try to follow the signal from the shonen tantei badges to find out their location.

As I ran hundreds of questions flowed through my mind:_ What's going on? In that situation they could have easily taken me too, so why did they just take Shinji and Haibara? How did the Black Organization even figure out that we were here? Why is this happening now? Last time-_

_'Last time'... what? In this situation what happened 'last time' doesn't matter, something like this didn't happen 'last time'. That means that this is probably happening as an effect of Shinji and I existing in this time period... it's our fault._

...

_Crap. It seems that Conan and I have made a big enough effect on the time stream that things have begun to change... __  
_

_The only question is why I was kidnapped as well. It's natural that they would want to take Ai, she was 'Sherry' who betrayed them and then disappeared after all, it's a bit concerning that they found her so quickly... but it's even more concerning that they took Ai and me but left Conan behind.  
_

_If I'm meant to be a hostage to make Ai cooperate then they would have surely thought that two hostages would be better than one and brought both of us along... perhaps they suspected that one of us (that is between Conan and I) was Shinichi Kudo and decided to go with a fifty-fifty chance, if they grabbed the right one lucky them they would just shoot Ai and I right then and there, it they picked the wrong one then they would use the kid and 'Sherry' as bait to get the real Shinichi to show up...  
_

_No...that's ridiculous. The Black Organization would have a more complex plan than that.  
_

_Conan... what ever they're planning, don't fall for it. I beg of you, don't fall for it!  
_

...

I had arrived home shortly, short on both answers and breath.

"Professor!" I shouted, despite my throat being so dry from running.

The professor came from up stairs looking as though he'd been working on making some new ridiculous gadget for me, "Shi-... no Conan? What's the matter?"

"Haibara and Shinji... kidnapped... Black..." I managed to say between gasps as I was still having a hard time breathing. _Stupid seven year old stamina._

The professor recoiled, apparently understood what I meant. Not that he would be very useful in this sort of situation. He stammered a reply, "Wh-what should we do?"

"For now... we should wait," I said, finally beginning to catch my breath. I explained, "This isn't something I can handle on my own like this, even if I were to go to the police and tell them that my friends were kidnapped I doubt they would do much good against the Black Organization, so I'll wait for Shinichi to get here so we can come up with a plan... we can track them with their shonen tantei badges assuming Gin hasn't discovered those."

Of course the person I was waiting for had significantly less experience dealing with the Black Organization than I did, even though both Shinji and I told him about our experiences it's no good if he didn't actually live through them... getting shot at and trying to learn from a story about someone else getting shot at are entirely different things. At least mentally he was on the same level as me if you don't factor in the whole experience thing, actually in a way it's almost like he's Hattori if you think about it... forget I said that.

_Maybe I should call Hattori... the three of us working together instead of just two... nah I'd rather not get him involved right now, it'd be best to avoid him getting mixed up with the Black Organization until the last moment, what with all his connections to the police._

"What will you do if you can't get a signal from the badges wherever they are?" Professor Agasa asked smartly.

"I'll figure something out when that happens, if things get really bad Shinji will probably stall as long as he can... and if there's no other option he'd probably protect Haibara with his life..." I felt really bad saying so, I understood his personality very well because besides his weird habits we're basically the same, "but it's fine because he still has a trump card, a final plan to _cheat_ death."

_But we don't actually know that it would work... it's only theoretical... and it'd be hard to pull off..._

_Crap. Crap. Crap. Shinichi... Where are you?_


	17. Walking Bravely Into The Unknown

**Sorry this chapter is a short one...  
**

**I foresee a lot of POV changes from this point on. Because all three of our meitantei need a little bit of attention. Conan's part in this chapter feels kinda lame... but it's so climactic! A really stupid joke. A desperate situation. A declaration of war! A chapter that reveals so much but so little at the same time!  
**

**I thought about naming this chapter '. . . - - - . . . . . .- - -. . .' but I figured most people wouldn't get it, besides a dash wouldn't show up in the chapter title slot anyway.  
**

**I hope you all enjoy (well I guess you wouldn't have read this far if you didn't) and please review. I'm saying it again, thanks for all the reviews so far! It's getting really close to the end so for those of you who've stuck with me so far: A-RI-GA-TO!  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**17. Walking Bravely Into The Unknown  
**

I was already on my way to the professor's house, well I had been planning to stop and say hi to Ran in person first but it was clear that was going to have to wait. Something that those two hadn't predicted must have happened, that much I was able to understand immediately and I realized that meant that they no longer held all the answers ahead of time.

If you're wondering how I was able to come to that conclusion here's the answer:

SOS.

Conan sent me an SOS. I was a bit surprised so my first reaction was a strange but somewhat logical one:_ 'but we don't have a boat.' _

Of course I didn't say it out loud and quickly realized that he didn't mean 'Save Our Ship', it was so obvious, I should have known right away, in this case the second 'S' was 'Shinji'. The situation had probably deteriorated and Conan was waiting for me to arrive so that the two of us could gather our thoughts, we would have to plan it very carefully because the outcome of this situation was unknown.

_Still why send 'SOS'? If he had called and filled me in on the situation I could be thinking of possibilities while I made my way there, better yet we could have come up with a plan over the phone so we could start implementing it the moment I got there. Perhaps he's being paranoid that there could be listening devices either at the professor's house or my location... or maybe I'm also in danger, the 'S' could just as easily be me_.

Still unsure what Conan's reasoning was I asked the driver of the taxi I was riding in to get me to my destination as fast as legally possible... fine, so I told him it'd be okay to break a traffic law or two. _Sorry officer Yumi, this is probably something important_.

..._Probably_.

. . . - - - . . .

I woke up, though I didn't remember ever falling asleep, in a dim room. From what I could see with my still bleary eyes there was nothing of interest in the room, no windows no furniture, no obvious death-traps, no tools that could be used to escape, no people, _nothing_. The floor and walls were gray; _oh, Joy. Concrete. _And there was only one door.

My hands and feet were tied, the knots were simple enough that I could have probably untied them given enough time but I knew that it would be better not to risk it until I figured out just what was going on, my mouth (and obviously not my eyes) was left uncovered. Oddly enough I was still wearing the clothes I'd been in at the time I was kidnapped, I was almost certain they would have changed me to prevent me from using any gadgets I might have. Ai was sleeping in similar bondage next to me.

I wasn't particularly hungry or thirsty so I deduced that not much time had passed since we'd been kidnapped. Our bondage was probably loose because they tied the knots hastily, unsure of how long we would stay sleeping.

_We were kidnapped, Conan knows this... he's probably coming up with a rash plan to rescue us at this very moment. But he has no information at all besides the fact that they purposely didn't take him... assuming that the Black Organization planned this out as carefully as they usually do he won't be able to rescue us on his own. It'd also be impossible for me to escape from the Black Organization with Ai while I'm in this body...  
_

_The best thing for me to do is to sit tight right here for the moment and try to get any helpful information, then I'll try to get it to Conan using my shonen tantei badge._

I silently hoped for the best, praying that everything would turn out fine. But I prepared myself both physically and mentally for the worst. By that point I'd already gotten a pretty good idea what was going to happen next... and I didn't like it.

_It's still to early for that... If Conan's really going to do what I think he will -No, he'll definitely try to do that. I can't just sit here idly... I have to find some way to stop him..._

. . . - - - . . .

Shinichi arrived looking like he'd worried the entire time since I'd sent him the message. It didn't take very long to explain what had happened, in that regard it was actually_ helpful_ that we had almost no information to go on.

Rescuing Shinji and Haibara was extremely important, those two have the most experience dealing with the Black Organization out of anyone, I hate to admit it but without them I probably wouldn't stand a chance at really taking the organization down. It was top priority. Even with the two of us together it was impossible to come up with a plan that wouldn't get unrelated people involved but it was a risk we had to be willing to take.

It was decided that even if this was probably a trap we were going to call in the Calvary. Assuming the Organization knows that there's someone fighting against them and realizes that it's not just Haibara and Shinji or the FBI, there's no way that they don't expect us to retaliate; but they won't expect it on this scale. All of our allies at once, an all or nothing fight to the finish.

The plan that Shinji and I had come up with together to stop the Black organization once and for all. The final phase of Plan C. That's what we decided was the best course of action despite -or perhaps in spite of- all the dangers that would come with it.

_Haibara... Shinji... we'll come for you. Once we're at war with the Black Organization, we'll definitely come.  
_

_ So just wait for us okay?_


	18. Don't Ever Look Back

**I'm pretty sure that this is the longest story I've ever written... ever. I'm surprised that I've had the motivation to keep it up, usually I would have written myself into a corner and abruptly stopped by now... in any case considering that this story was originally going to have a nice 'they changed the future' happy ending around when they first went to the past to begin with it's amazing it's gone on this long...  
**

**there are some sketchy parts in this chapter... viewer preparedness is advised. Let's just say Shinji has a quick perverted thought in his internal monologue and something happens in a place where he has no change of clothes. BE PREPARED, I'VE PROBABLY JUST SPOILED WHAT COULD HAVE OTHERWISE BEEN HILARIOUS (or mentally scaring, take your pick).  
**

**I don't normally write that ^ sort of thing... but for some reason it turned out this way. I apologize in advance. Also as far as the listed 'allies' in Shinichi's portion of the chapter... there are _plenty_ of things wrong with it, _I acknowledge that_.  
**

**I hope you all enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**18. Don't ever look back  
**

Ai finally woke up. She was a bit shocked, shaking because all around us she could feel the killing intent of the Black Organization, and more than anything she looked as though she thought she was going to die.

With her awake it was a given that Gin would probably come in here to kill or torture us soon, he would probably want to hear 'Sherry's screams of terror, pain, and anguish. If not Gin then someone else would come in, that person would likely use me a a hostage to get Ai to continue the development Apotoxin 4869. Any number of other scenarios could occur, each just as unfavorable.

I didn't waste any time, I whispered so quietly that most listening devices wouldn't have been able to pick up my words as anything more than that fake whispering noise people make when they're pretending to talk about someone that's nearby.

"Ai. Quietly. I'm going to untie you, once the ropes are off I want you to reach into my back pocket and take out what's inside, it's the only way the two of us will be able to break out of here before Conan and Shinichi declare war on the Black Organization and all Hell breaks loose..." I stopped myself, remembering that she still thought Conan was the only Shinichi and that I was just a normal six year old, I continued quickly, "I'll explain later, but for now this is really important. I need you to trust me."

"Why not untie yourself and get the thing out of your pocket?" She asked in a whisper that may have been even quieter than mine. It was actually a very reasonable question, I could have easily untied myself while she was asleep and handled everything on my own but I choose to do it this way so she wouldn't be startled when she woke up.

"It'll be quicker this way, just trust me," I said, hoping that my voice wouldn't sound shaky, but if it was I blame the whisper, a person's whispering voice never sounds steady right?

She didn't reply but nodded just slightly. Soon I had managed to untie the ropes at her hands, she sighed with the silence of a mouse. Hesitantly she reached into my back pocket, I have no doubt thinking things like; _'he's just a six year old'_ or '_I'm not a pervert for doing this_'.

I'm sure you've already guessed what the thing in my pocket was, but for those of you who are a little slow I'll just tell you. The medicine container with the temporary antidote to Apotoxin 4869. Yes, I realize that it's very strange of me to carry around a full medicine container of it but it's rather convenient for situations like this. Now then, that answer leads to another question I'm sure you've all been wondering about... or perhaps you'd already guessed the answer to this one as well; Which of us was going to take the antidote?

"What is this?" Ai asked, she looked like she already had an idea of what it was. The drug had been invented by her -albeit not this her it was a later version of her, but still her all the same- and the notation reading '_1,2,6,12,24,3,X_' on the top of the container was in her handwriting after all.

I answered bluntly, "A temporary antidote to Apotoxin 4869 that you invented. Those markings on the top indicate approximately how long the effects will last for: the 1 is one hour, the 2 is two hours, it continues like that for 6 through 24, the 3 is three days, and the X is completely unpredictable -it has some pretty ridiculous side effects, don't even ask about them."

She was no longer able to whisper after hearing that, "An antidote... I invented... when? But I just... How did you...?"

"Quickly give me one 1. There's someone at the door if you shout like that they won't be confused when they see what's about to happen."

Her face at hearing that was priceless, she didn't ask any questions though. She took on of the pills from the area on the medicine container marked '1' and put it in my mouth.

Before swallowing it I decided that I should probably add, "It would be best if you turned around."

Ai gave a _very_ tsundere blush and turned around, probably having realized what I meant, just in time for me to have my almost magical growth spurt which by now I'd gotten quite used to the painful feeling of, causing my clothes to be _very_ tight- though that only lasted a moment. Conveniently the ropes were also broken by my growing wrists just as I had planned.

I was in my eighteen year old body... of course, two doses of poison wouldn't be miraculously reversed by only one dose of antidote. I had expected that when I calculated which antidote to take. I was probably smiling like a madman as I reached for the medicine container that Ai had put down after giving me the first pill, I opened the container and took out a pill marked 2...

...

It's difficult to gather a large number of strange people in one house without attracting too much attention, especially when that house is only one house away from the house of the person you don't want to attract the attention of. I'm sure you already see where this is going...

Of all people Ran was the person that realized that there was a commotion in the professor's house, she even came to see what it was.

Imagine if you will: You know something's going on in your next door neighbor's house so naturally you go to see what it is but when you open the door you immediately see Shinichi Kudo, Hattori Heiji, Jodie Starling, Kaitou Kid (apparently actually called Katio Kuroba), Akai Shuichi, Conan Edogawa, Andre Camel, Yukiko and Yusaku Kudo, Eisuke Hondou, James Black, a few other FBI agents I hadn't yet learned the names of, Wataru Takagi (don't even ask), professor Agasa, and Mizunashi Rena all with extremely serious expressions. How would you react?

She didn't seem know quite how to react. Actually her reaction was fairly simple, after a few moments of blinking she fainted.

It was decided that she'd only be asking questions when she came to anyway, Conan and I took our group of allies and left to start our war against the Black Organization, leaving only the professor behind to take care of Ran when she woke up.

"Goodbye, Ran," I said, not even turning around to look back at her as we left. I didn't have the courage to add _'I'll be back'_, even if she couldn't hear me I didn't want to say that unless I was absolutely sure it was true.


	19. An Omen

**A new POV will be appearing in this chapter heh heh heh it's anonymous, I wonder if anyone can guess.  
**

**grr... Shinji! His personality is nothing like I originally planned! It's like he's taken it upon himself to have some really weird character developments... I didn't mean for him to seem like such a pervert... honest.  
**

**I feel like I'm ignoring Conan-chan... It's been a while since his POV showed up...  
**

**BTW: I don't cuss, I don't like making characters cuss either, I generally avoid it but sometimes I use it to make a point... I hope you find my alternative to making the characters notably swear to be amusing.  
**

**I hope you all enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**19. An Omen  
**

I arrived at the professor's house, huffing because I had ran the entire way. When I opened the door there was no immediate reaction but soon the professor looked up and stared in disbelief.

"Crap..." I cursed, "It's too late... they already left."

"You... you're...!" The professor was a bit to surprised to do any more than trip over his own words.

I ignored him, muttering to myself, "At this point I won't be able to stop them from doing something really stupid..."

That's when I noticed the girl lying on the couch. _There's still a chance. Even if this doesn't stop them it'll slow them down enough to..._

"Wha... What are you doing here?" The professor finally managed._  
_

Without answering I reached into the girls pocket a took out her cell phone and typed out a message with my fingers moving like lightning. Message sent.

I couldn't help but sigh.

"I'm trying to stop that idiot detective from getting himself killed."

...

I waited by the door in the room for someone to come in, it didn't take long given Ai's recent shout. When a person came in I quickly knocked them out and _borrowed_ their clothes as my growth spurt had ripped my 'Shinji' clothes to shreds.

Speaking for the first time since transforming, I said, "It's safe for you to turn around now."

It was only natural that she be surprised, she wouldn't recognize my voice like this, in fact now that I was back to my twenty-eight year old body the only thing she might have any hope of recognizing would be my hairstyle or possibly my face but that would be a bit of a stretch. Considering that I was wearing a black trench coat, pants, and shirt I probably looked like the most suspicious person that could have possibly appeared.

There was a hint of fear in her voice, "Shinji?"

"Right, you know me best by that name," I replied, trying to mimic my own childish tone so that she might recognize me better, but with this voice I just seemed too serious. _Really... another chance to go back to my regular body and I almost miss being younger, at least when I was Conan or Shinji saying things like that would seem like a joke instead of a suspicious statement._

"Then you were... actually Shinichi Kudo? Edogawa-kun was just a cover, to make you seem more normal?" She asked, hesitating. In the back of her genius scientist mind she was probably noting that I was a bit too old to be Shinichi Kudo, but I guess it was too dark in the room for it to really register just how old I was.

"Yes, and No," I replied, trying very hard to hide my amusement, "I am the real Shinichi Kudo, but so is Conan. Neither of us is a fake. Or to be more precise at the moment there's a third, he's actually still going by the name Shinichi Kudo in this time, and he is also real."

"That's-"

"It's '_impossible_', I know. I get that _a lot_ these days," I said dryly, "I assure you it's quite _possible_, but I'll explain all of that later. For the time being we need to get out of here before Conan and Shinichi do something really rash, the door is open and I have the perfect disguise to blend in with. Assuming we don't run into Gin or Vodka we should be fine like this."

She agreed, but eyed me cautiously, wary of what I might be trying to hide from her.

The hallway outside the room that we had been in was empty -which I thought was quite strange considering that the Black Organization usually came off as being extremely paranoid- I would have expected them to have at least had another nameless guy standing outside the door where two barely tied up kidnapped children were being held. We'd managed to go all the way down the hall and up a flight of stairs before we finally turned a corner around which we found a person.

The nondescript black organization member seemed to recognize Ai (at least a little bit), he said something like, "What's that girl doing here?"

I briefly turned to look at Ai, giving her a wink at an angle that the man wouldn't have been able to see, she somehow took the hint and acted like a scared little girl as she so often does so well. Allowing myself to laugh madly I answered him with a sinister tone, "This brat? Gin seems to think she has some kind of connection to that *insert swear word of your choice here* Sherry, he wants me to interrogate her cause she seems a bit more relaxed with me -figures I remind her of someone she knows. It's a hassle but if this brat really is a lead to whatever Sherry's up to then I'll do what I can to help catch that *insert another swear word of your choice here*."

The man seemed to believe me. After exchanging a few more words he walked of and we were able to continue our seemingly fool-proof escape. One I was sure we were out of the man's ear shot I whispered to Ai.

"Great job so far, if we keep this pace we should be out in no time. And um sorry for talking about you with such harsh language, I figured it'd be more believable."

Her response was cold as though she was talking to the prime suspect of a crime, "Just who are you really?"

"A detective."

I paused for one long moment, looking her straight in the eyes.

"Shinichi Kudo, Conan Edogawa, _and_ also Shinji Kudo. Believe whichever you'd like, or believe them all. Now, let's get going."

...

Suddenly my cell phone went off. It was a text message from Ran.

_She woke up then? What did the professor tell her as an excuse..._

I opened up the phone and saw the contents of the message, I was almost one hundred percent sure that it hadn't come from Ran:

_"You're looking for Shinji an that shy girl, right? They're at the professor's house now."_

Impossible. We'd left the professor's house less than half an hour ago, there's no way that the black organization would give them back after having just kidnapped them, at least not from what I knew of them. This was definitely a trap, a very stupid one...

But the fact that there's a trap set up at the professor's house means... something must have happened to the professor and Ran.


	20. Shoot Me

**The ending didn't seem like it would take this many chapters when I came up with it... strange...  
**

**It's been focused on Shinji and Ai for so long... I can't help it their situation was so much cooler than preparations for a war.  
**

**the desperate situation finally reaches it's climax! Who is this mysterious woman? Will Shinji and Haibara survive? Just what is really going on? Do these pants make my butt look big? Why am I asking you all these questions? -The answers to these questions (well maybe not the last two) and more in the next chapter!  
**

**I hope you all enjoy (well you haven't abandoned my crazed ramblings yet...) and please review (I might go insane if no one does, am I just writing too fast for you guys to review? I could slow down *threat*).  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**20. Shoot Me  
**

Shinichi had received a suspicious message that was apparently from Ran, saying something like 'Shinji and Haibara are at the professor's house'. Impossible, it had to be a trap, there was no other way.

For a trap to be there that means that something happened there, Ran and the professor were in danger. And it was almost certainly the Black Organization that was behind this.

_Crap. Crap. Crap! What should take priority in a situation like this? Either way..._

_Ugh... I've got to think clearly, if I don't I won't be able to make a proper decision... No if I waste too much time thinking about this then it'll be too late! They could all be killed before I even decide what to do!_

_Shinji and Haibara are tough, they can wait a little bit longer... that is if they aren't dead already._

...

Would you believe me if I told you that Ai and I got out of that situation completely unscathed? You probably would under normal circumstances, but with me having asked that you'll probably find it to be no surprise that that's a complete lie... well technically. You see as we neared the end of things I was very close to leaving this world forever, I won't lie to you; I died.

We had been searching for the exit for nearly an hour before I stared to feel uncomfortable. Random flashes of color, my vision blurring, I was already seeing double, and extreme pulsations of pain throughout my entire body; there was no doubt, the antidote was already beginning to wear off. From previous experience I was already used to all of these symptoms, I didn't let any signs of my discomfort show visibly, but I'm sure Ai was able to sense that something was wrong regardless.

I figured something like this would happen, it was all within my calculations. If one pill would reverse one poison and two pills were needed to reverse both it's natural that there would be other issues involved with have two dosages of the poison in my body, the time limit was cut in half, my rate of gaining immunity would probably also be higher. I took a one hour pill and a two hour pill, that adds up to three... so now that an hour has passed if the time really is cut in half then I only have thirty minutes left.

That wasn't too troubling. The annoying part was that my instincts were telling me that Gin would be showing himself soon. As much as I wish it hadn't been that instinct was absolutely correct, we actually saw him as soon as me turned the first corner after I began feeling the antidote wearing off... wonderful timing huh? Actually, it was.

"I'm not sure who you are or why you're helping that brat, but for both of you it's time to die," Gin said in a very convicting tone as he cocked his gun, pointing it Ai.

"You're going to kill this girl?" I asked, in a tone so convincing that I almost believed myself... well what I was about to say wasn't exactly a lie, "Even though she is the only person that has information on Sherry's current location... you'd still kill her? If you kill this girl you'll never be able to find that traitor."

He looked at me with sinister disbelief, gun still pointed at the ex-evil scientist that betrayed him -not that he knew that. We stood like that in silence a few moments, neither of us daring to make a move.

I laughed to myself ever so slightly, leaning down to Ai and not bothering to whisper, "Isn't that right little girlie? That evil aniki would never find Sherry-neechan without your help right?"

She nodded warily.

I added -this time whispering so that only Ai would hear, "That's why you need to run out the door as quickly as possible in just a moment, I'm about to do something _really_ stupid."

"What are you whispering about?" Gin asked angrily.

I stop leaning towards Ai and stand up straight with my arms spread out wide. Knowingly doing something this stupid was causing my adrenaline levels to go up, my heart was beating faster, the pain from the antidote being so close to wearing off was pushed to the back of my mind as my thoughts surged a mile a minute.

"Shoot me."

Ai gasped as if to ask 'how stupid can you be? If he shots you you'll die!', Gin's face was blank as though that was the last thing he expected me to say. Ai seemed to realize I had a plan but was still utterly shocked.

"Are you deaf? _Shoot me_. Right through the heart you trigger happy moron. Do you only like killing people that resist?" I continued, tossing in the insults for good measure, "Or is there a reason you aren't shooting me?"

Ai recovered from her momentary shock enough to run out the door while Gin was still trying to process what was going on.

He shot.

Immediately he turned to chase after Ai, leaving me for dead, which naturally I _was_ having just been shot -through the heart as requested.

It hurt a bit more than I had expected.

...

Shinichi and I apologized to everyone saying that something important came up and that we would have to continue our siege later. We rushed to the professor's house, and made it there in almost no time at all.

He gulped as he grabbed the doorknob and slowly opened the door, still a bit hesitant to walk into such an obvious trap. I nodded at him with a shy 'what else is there to do?' kind of smile. He did the same in return and stepped through the doorway.

"Thank goodness," A familiar voice sighed, "For a moment I thought I had been too late."

After seeing who it was I couldn't speak, the shock was too much. Shinichi had never met this person so naturally he wasn't surprised to see her, he was however slightly afraid after seeing my reaction.

"Shinji Kudo and Ai Haibara were kidnapped this time because _they_ suspected that she was 'Sherry' and that you -Conan- were Shinichi Kudo, as for the reason that _they_ kidnapped Shinji instead of you; it was a trap. _They_ wanted you to retaliate so _they_ could see how much of a threat you were, if you'd launched an attack as huge as you were just about to there was no way you or anyone you cared about would be allowed to live."

_So that was the reason... wait how does she know that? Moreover how is she even here? She should be..._

"Who is this?" Shinichi asked, his curiosity apparently winning over his sense that something was wrong.

"A friend," She said.


	21. The Grandfather Paradox

**Yes! Finally another chance to get into some weird paradox crap. It's no fun if all of the characters can follow the flow of the conversation (plus if they all understand then I don't have the chance to explain for those of you that don't) so I kinda had to make Shinichi the clueless one.  
**

**I kind of had to include the last line of this chapter, I felt like I was cheating you guys if I didn't... I'm not sure why I felt that way though, there doesn't seem to be any reason for it because as far as lines go it's a rather stupid one... oh well, my weird tendencies have never steered me wrong before! (*cough* yes they have *cough*)  
**

**Thank you for reading this far and not getting tired of me! I hope you all enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

** 21. The Grandfather Paradox  
**

A friend? Really? Conan's friend? my friend? Both of our friend? Can't she say something more than just that much? A name... a fake name... a more descriptive situational role than just 'friend' would even be fine. That this mysterious girl was a 'friend' told me absolutely nothing, no... it told me less than nothing.

"Are you trying to hide your identity from him for some reason?" Conan asked, his tone had a suspicious 'I really wish you weren't here, leave now' ring to it. He seems to be pretty familiar with the girl, so she's _his_ 'friend' then, but not necessarily mine.

"Just in case they bugged this place I'd rather not have any of my names mentioned for the moment,"she replied with a tone that seemed to say 'you idiot I just saved your life so don't question me'.

_'Names'... it's plural? Who is this chick?_

"What are you doing here in the first place?" Conan asked. Further concreting the impression that this girl was a person that he didn't think was supposed to be here... a friendly member of the Black Organization 'Vermouth' maybe? Or perhaps this had more to do with time travel -which I still have no real proof that it is possible- that would explain my not knowing her.

She gave him a cold stare as if he had just asked her the stupidest question in the world, she didn't see much need to answer his question but rather turned it back on him, "And what are you doing here? Besides setting off a serious grandfather paradox that is."

_Grandfather paradox, I've heard that before... it has something to do with the dangers and mysteries of time travel... er, what was it again?_ By just trying to remember what it was I wasn't getting anywhere so I tried asking directly, "Grandfather paradox?"

The girl -who by now it was pretty obvious was from the future- sighed, "It's basically like this; if you were able to go back in time and killed your own grandfather before he grew up then theoretically you wouldn't be able to exist because your father was never born, but if you didn't exist then you would have never killed your grandfather and thus as your grandfather never died you did exist to kill him- the circular reasoning goes on for eternity, no one_ really_ knows what would happen if anyone actually attempted this."

"This is different! We-" Conan protested, but he was cut off.

The girl interrupted him still speaking coldly but something about her seemed genuinely worried, "How is it any different? If anything it's worse! You were poisoned and became a child, later you went back in time to stop that, by doing so you would have never became a child and thus never would have gone back in time to stop the event from occurring; your case is worse because not only did you cause the initial paradox you became involved when you tried to stop it! Instead of avoiding the poison altogether it was given to the future you meaning despite trying to stop the event it still happened but it happened to someone that shouldn't have been there in the first place."

"Hypocrite," Conan said sounding very annoyed but making a good point, "Isn't your presence in this time causing a paradox too?"

"Of course not, me being here was planned all along," She said with one eyebrow twitching, she pulled an envelope out of one of her pockets and held it so that Conan and I could see it clearly.

It was addressed to _'The current Ai Haibara'_.

...

_That's the letter that Shinji (although he was 'Shinichi' at the time) gave Haibara the day before we left for the past? Why does this Haibara have it she's... it can't be... she's the Haibara from my time...?_

She looked a bit too old to be the Haibara I had known from my time, but then again there's no telling when she left the future or when she arrived in the past, any amount of time could have easily passed since the last time this Haibara and I met.

"It completely explains the existence of the time machine and gives schematics for building one, it's actually quite amazing the number of things that completely contradict the current understanding of quantum and temporal metaphysics are perfectly theorized and explained with just this one simple letter... if I published it in a scientific journal I'd probably become rich," Haibara said with a proud expression, "In any case this letter would have kept me from becoming a temporal anomaly if you hadn't been stupid enough to try Plan B -and fail it at that. There was also a warning in it; don't let that idiot detective do anything stupid otherwise it's all over."

"'_Otherwise it's all over_'," Shinichi said, mimicking her tone perfectly, "could that be any more cryptic?"

She didn't have a chance to call him a fool or give a witty retort, because in that moment we witnessed something amazing- though we didn't know it was amazing yet.

Haibara (the one from this time period that had been kidnapped earlier) and Shinji -for some reason he seemed to be wearing a black trench coat with a hole in it's chest that was way too big for him- staggered in, clearly tired from making their way here from wherever they had been kidnapped to.

It took me a moment to realize that Shinji's sudden questionable wardrobe change probably meant that he had used the antidote to Apotoxin 4869, in my experience it had only ever lasted for twenty four hours without using consecutive doses, but I pushed that matter aside assuming it had something to do with his double dose of poison.

I was a bit more concerned trying to reason out why there would be a whole in the chest of the jacket. My conclusion: either he shot someone and stole their clothes, or he was shot.

"We need to get him to the hospital!" The smaller Haibara said, her voice was panicked, "Gin shot him. Gin shot his _heart_!"

Shinichi looked at the smaller Haibara, then at the one we'd just been talking to; he looked back and forth before he seemed to have finally come to the conclusion that time travel was just a mess waiting to happen and that it was better he didn't bother questioning it. It would only lead to another headache inducing explanation anyway.

"I'm fine," Shinji sighed, taking off the trench coat to reveal that he was indeed fine. No signs of an injury of any sort, much less a gunshot through his heart, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with him at all. He continued, "I learned a lot from this experience..."

He'd paused as though he was contemplating just how to word what he was about to say. When he finally did speak up he seemed quite pleased with himself to be able to honestly speak from experience on the matter.

"_Dying hurts like hell_."


	22. Of Death And Not Dying

**22nd chapter coming out on May 22nd, am I the only one that thinks that's interesting? I probably am...  
**

**Yup... definitely by far the longest story I've ever written, the characters just kinda took off on their own after I set up the situation... I'm not even sure it's still where I planned to lead it *nervous laugh*.  
**

**I'm starting to get a bit tired of it so I'll try and end it with a bang soon, before I become lazy about it. Well school's out so I'll have a bit more free time (aside from my 80+ hour summer service project *more nervous laughter*) ****I've still got some other story ideas... but it's hard to decide which to go with, so for those of you interested it may be a while before I start a new one... **

**I hope you all enjoy and please review. Thank you to those that did review last time!  
**

**-._.-._.-**

** 22. Of Death And Not Dying  
**

Of course I had expected everyone to react that way. It's not everyday you see someone that claims to have died, mostly because it's typically considered an impossible feat- then again so is time travel, teenagers turning into children, and dead bodies showing up everywhere that a person goes. At this point I think I've proven that the only thing that is 'impossible' is impossibility.

The smaller Ai and the bigger Ai were both nagging over me about getting shot, trying to make sure that I really was okay, they seemed to think that I'd used some kind of trick to cover the injury and to survive. Nope, no trick, I actually did die, I assure you... as I said it hurt quite a bit. Then I guess you're wondering how I'm still alive, and no I am not a ghost or anything like that, it's a simple matter of when and where.

Allow me to remind you of the circumstances of my death: I was standing in the hallway -a perfect target-, I had an adrenaline rush, the antidote to Apotoxin 4869 was about to wear off, Gin shot -there wasn't much distance between us-, the bullet went through my heart, I died. Now, despite all that, I am alive. Any of you think yourselves to be good enough detectives to solve this?

It's because I-_ Actually come to think of it why are there two of Ai here? There was no need for her to come from the future, I have the situation under control she shouldn't worry so much... it's because she's so paranoid that she's always overcautious. If she tried being rash and doing something impulsively just once then she'd understand..._

_Oh... sorry that was off topic wasn't it?_

You wanted to know how I managed to survive dying didn't you?

It's all because of the timing, If I hadn't been shot when I was it probably wouldn't have worked out nearly as well. I was shot with less than a minute left before the antidote wore off. That means I died moments before I would have shrank. You understand now right? Ai's poison, Apotoxin 4869, reversed time for my body. I was revived because of poison.

My twenty-eight year old body reverted to my six year old body just moments after I had officially died, but there was no gaping hole in my heart as a six year old so my body went back to functioning normally. If I hadn't caused myself to have an adrenaline rush then my heart wouldn't have been beating so hard before I was shot, if that were the case my blood wouldn't have kept circulating just a little bit after my heart was taken out of commission and then the antidote probably wouldn't have worn off just in time for me to be revived.

It was pretty amazing considering my usual luck.

Naturally I explained all of this to Ai (the older one) but she didn't seem pleased with the explanation, I think she thought that there was more to it than just that. For a moment she looked at me as if she were going to try to dissect me -definitely not something I'd like to experience, she's a mad scientist for crying out loud- but obviously thought better of it.

...

Dying and coming back to life because of Apotoxin 4869?

That's _insane_. _Impossible_. _Unthinkable_. Completely _inconceivable_.

Apotoxin 4869 is a poison! Poisons don't make people come back to life, they _kill_ people! Yet Shinji -they now called him- said all of it with a straight face... he may joke around a lot, but not about this kind of thing.

He was serious. What he said happened is what happened, or at the very least what he thinks happened.

For me, it was very troubling that he'd come back to life because of Apotoxin 4869. Even if it were mostly due to various difficult to reproduce circumstances that doesn't change what the ultimate reason he was able to survive after having been certifiably dead was.

He probably doesn't realize it but... this is so close to Apotoxin 4869's original purpose...I guess I was closer to succeeding than I thought, or maybe it's because he's survived two doses of the poison that it worked so effectively...

That doesn't matter. He should have never done something so rash... especially not for my sake...

...

_Apotoxin 4869 bringing people back from the dead? ... in that Itakura guy's diary didn't it say Vermouth said something strange about the Black Organization? What was it again... Ah that's right!_

'We can be both of God and the Devil. Since we're trying to raise the dead against the stream of time.'

_Haibara had said something when I asked her about Apotoxin 4869 once too... no she's said a lot of things that could be related to this... let's see, what she said was..._

'It's a nostrum to raise the dead. I wonder if that answer is satisfactory?'

'You can't rush things. Humans can never go against the stream of time. If man forcibly tries to change that there will be punishment'

'Kudo-kun? You would probably never even dream that you are already part of a project that the Black Organization has been working on already for half a century'

_How could I have forgotten the Organization's supposed goal was... weren't they trying to bring the dead back to life? _

_Crap. Crap. Crap._

_ Whether they've realized it or not, they've actually managed to reach their goal... if only a little bit._

_This is bad._

**-._.-._.-**

**Referencing:**

**Episode 309; for Vermouth's quote. She said it in English so there's no chance of a translation fail. I just wanted to get the words right.  
**

**All other information (ex, the Haibara quotes) I had to check came from the wiki detectiveconanworld. Actually one of them was something that Haibara had thought so Conan should have never heard it, but it fits with everything else so just ignore the misplaced logic in him quoting it.  
**


	23. I May Be An Idiot

**Amazing there was actually no dialogue in the last chapter! The first few chapters were so dialogue driven but now... now the situation almost handles itself without anyone talking... Well there's plenty of dialogue in this extra long chapter!  
**

**So... surprised right? There actually was a point in me -technically- killing off one of the main characters! It was for the plot... I think... really I'd come up with the trick behind him still being alive but relating it back to the Black Organization's supposed goal was actually an after thought eh heh heh... As I said the characters have been moving the story in ways I never intended...  
**

**Well in this chapter you'll get to see some more confusion and denial of reality from Shinichi! Yay! And hopefully I'll manage to take control of the story back from the characters, at least enough to lead it to an ending... but it seems that will be nearly impossiblev*sigh* ending on twenty-four would have been nice, that would have been good luck... I think.  
**

**I hope you all enjoy and please review.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

** 23. I May Be An Idiot  
**

Okay so the little girl -whom I still have not been officially introduced to, but it seems as though she's the Ai Haibara that Conan told me about- and Shinji managed to escape from their weird low security situation, and he apparently died in the process of their escape but he's completely fine now, and now a slightly older girl -whom Conan and I had been talking to, apparently also Ai Haibara- is mothering him while staring off into space. Am I the only one that_ still_ has absolutely no idea what's going on?

And the whole time traveling thing, does no one else find all of this to be extremely weird? Assuming that all of them are telling the truth about their identities in this room there are three Shinichi Kudo (though two of them are suspicious children from the future), two Ai Haibara (that's not even her real name! Apparently she's a genius scientist turned into another suspicious child, and one of them is from the future), professor Agasa (admittedly the most normal person here), and Ran Mouri (still conveniently asleep on the couch).

All these self-proclaimed time travelers (I still have no solid proof) seem to be doing nothing to actually help the situation. They said they came back to this time period to change the future, so why are we still in a bad situation? The answer; because they aren't helping at all.

If anything they've made everything worse. From the sound of it Shinji's lived a relatively normal life (well as normal as it can be for a shrunken detective that's after an evil organization) the past twelve years after he was poisoned; as for Conan, he seems pretty sad about the whole shrunken ordeal -Shinji probably got over it a while back- but he doesn't seem to be miserable to the point that trying to change the past would be necessary. Can't they just leave the past alone, all this time travel nonsense is giving me a headache.

"... What do you think Shinichi?" Conan asked.

I had been too spaced out to hear the rest of the question, it's not like my opinion matters much to these guys anyway, I'm still trying to figure out why no one finds the zombie old-man child (namely Shinji) weird at all.

Conan seemed to realize that I hadn't been listening, he sighed and repeated what I had ignored before, "Since the organization kidnapped those two on the way home from school -in the least busy area we pass no less- we can assume they have been following Shinji and I for a while to have carefully planned this out. That means that they must have discovered our identities or at least one of ours. Also now that Gin has seen both Shinji and his adult form -not to mention shot him-... it's best you stay in the Beika area but still keep out of the public eye, don't you think Shinichi?"

Right now the only thing keeping me from openly denying their constant loads of time travel crap is those two's apparent intelligence. I'll have to admit, if he's_ not_ an infantilized me from the future, then this kid is a super genius. Even if it seemed like it would be a hassle, I couldn't object that he'd come up with a good basic plan...

"Um, yeah. That's fine," I said trying not to sound impressed at all by his deduction -it's my job to impress other people with my deductions- I added, "I guess I'll mostly just stay in my house, but if I don't go out every now and then it might seem suspicious if they're watching the area."

"Right," Shiji agreed. I was a bit surprised he actually agreed with me, I thought for sure someone was going to tell me I was stupid and that I needed to go into hiding again... score one for non-time traveler Shinichi. Shinji continued, "The Black Organization probably is watching the area so you need to be very careful to go about your normal life, just don't let any cases you solve become too publicly known."

"Are you all stupid?" The older of the two Haibara-sans asked coldly (There it is, I just knew someone was going to say it) continuing in a dry tone, "There's no way he can just go back to his normal life after all this. By now They already know that Shinichi Kudo is involved in all of this."

_Well isn't that just peachy? Now the time travelers are arguing._

...

Shinji and Haibara (the older one) had gotten into a huge argument about whether or not it was okay for Shinichi to go about his daily life. Naturally I agreed with Shinji, it's fine as long as he's careful, even if the Black Organization has been watching us they still didn't seem to know about him yet. Their argument was obviously going no where, it was just a bunch of circular reasoning.

All of a sudden Shinji stopped in the middle of a particularly useless sounding rebuttal. His expression made it clear that something was very wrong, it was almost like he was in pain. For a moment no one was sure what to do, he was just standing there with a pained expression...

"Shinji... Are you okay?" I asked. There was no answer.

"What's wrong, Shinji?" Shinichi tried asking. Still no answer.

At this point both Haibaras were carefully examining him to see if there was anything physically wrong with him. There wasn't.

The younger Haibara asked the elder, "Could it be his body is going into shock after having died?"

The elder Haibara responded, "It's possible, but if that's the case it should have happened before now. Such a huge delay makes no sense..."

At that Shinji suddenly started moving again, or rather he was laughing like a psychopath. Hesitantly both ex-mad scientists backed away. After a while he calmed down and stopped laughing.

He finally spoke up, his tone sounded almost sad, "Sorry, don't worry about it... that was nothing. Really. It doesn't matter, not anymore anyway."

"Idiot! How could that have possibly been nothing!"

"An idiot... I might be an idiot..." He responded without much conviction, "You sound just like you did at that time... trying so hard to stop me, to keep me safe... unaware of just how much danger you yourself are in..."

"Wha-What are you talking about?" Haibara asked dropping her usual cold facade. I mentally laughed at her; _she looks so tsundere right now... oh God I sound like Shinji!_

He laughed again, but this time it sounded fake. He walked up to me and took my glasses, putting them on himself quickly, but not quickly enough that I didn't see the tears welling up at the edge of his eyes, the very thing he'd taken my glasses to try to hide.

"I... I remember everything now," He said, his voice didn't match the cool and confident appearance he was trying to give himself, he looked at me carefully before continuing, "What it is that make me and this one so different...the reason that I started all of this... Plan A... the thing I wanted to change... everything."

Everyone was silent and still as though time had stopped. We were curious, we wanted to know what the reason behind all of this had been, he was the only one that knew... but after seeing the usually smiling Shinji with that look on his face, I was almost afraid to find out the truth, I'm sure the others felt the same.

I still hadn't figured out whether or not I really even wanted to know what he meant. I opened my mouth to say something -I don't know what, anything I guess.

I wasn't given the chance, Shinji spoke up. He was facing downward, as if staring at the floor would change anything.

"They forced... we were... I was..." He paused for a moment trying to figure out what to say, he looked so sad and frustrated but I couldn't see his eyes past the glare on his/my glasses.

"Ran died... and it was all my fault."


	24. How it all began

**BA-KA BAKA Baka baka baka! Author's Block! I've been coming up with _great_ ideas for _OTHER_ stories but this one was almost impossible! I know what I want to happen but it won't come out right! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Despite that I think I did relatively well on this chapter... It's really long too.  
**

**I_ think_ I've _finally_ regained control of the story, I should be able to get it to reach an ending soon... well if I wanted it could reach an ending in the next chapter but it would be really cheesy, like a Disney ending... I don't want to do that to you guys so I'm going to try to reach a good ending not some Disney _and they all lived happily ever after_ crap. But if you want that by all means let me know, I haven't quite decided what all I'll do for the next chapter yet.  
**

**~Flashback time! A strangely romantic and suspenseful flashback... Wow... it seems I'm _really_ good at making ConanxAi moments (it's not intentional)... but as far as pairings go I mostly stick to canon, well I guess there's plenty of evidence to say that Ai at least likes Conan/Shinichi, but not much for the other way around...  
**

**You wouldn't be reading this right now if you haven't been enjoying so far... I hope hope you like it this time too. As far as reviews go, Thank you! Please review this time too.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**24. How It All Began  
**

They had discovered my identity and decided that I was too dangerous to leave alive but they also thought that I was too valuable a specimen to pass up as one of the only survivors of a poison that a missing scientist had developed. Their reaction was immediate, they researched me... figured out everything about me as Conan and as Shinichi, and when they were finally finished they captured me.

I had woken up in a black room. My clothes had been changed to a simple loose fitting t-shirt and a pair of shorts with an elastic waistband, nothing else. The only furniture inside was a bed and a toilet. Ai was sitting at the edge of the bed with a sorrowful look.

When she realized that I had woken up she spoke, "They're using you as a hostage to make me cooperate. There isn't anyone else here that could ever complete the research on Apotoxin 4869, they're having me use you as a test subject to complete the poison... if I don't... you and everyone else will be killed..."

"You can't! If that poison is ever completed-" I cut myself off, realizing that I actually didn't know what would happen if it was completed.

"Do you think I don't know that?" She shouted at me with tears in her eyes, I wouldn't have minded so much if she wasn't blaming herself, "I don't want to do this... but you... the professor... Ayumi, Genta, Mitsuhiko...your parents, Ran-san, Mouri-san, Hattori-kun... everyone... if I _don't_ do this all of you will..."

I could tell by the look in her eyes, she just couldn't bring herself to say it again.

I cursed quietly, "...If it were just me then it would have been fine... but everyone else is..."

"No... just you is sufficient..." She said, a pale pink blush crept across her face and she wouldn't let her eyes meet mine as if to distract me she added quietly, "...Sorry."

D_arn you, you're tsundere-ness is making_ me_ blush too... _I was thankful for the distraction, anything to make the whole situation less awkward. I quickly changed the subject, "Does that mean everyone else is..."

"You're the only one they've locked up like this, they thought that you were too dangerous to have running around..." She replied, "Everyone else is being watched carefully though."

"Ai..."

I was interrupted.

"Here I'm 'Sherry' If you call me 'Ai' like that I'll just..." She couldn't make herself finish, but I knew what she meant. If I called her 'Ai' she would just remember all the good times she's had as 'Ai Haibara', and she wouldn't be able to take it.

"'Sherry' then..." I said, trying very hard to sound like I wasn't worried in the least, "even if you do complete the poison they'll probably kill me... as it is they're probably hoping that I'll die while being used as a test subject, and if that happens they'll just give Apotoxin 4869 to one of the others and use them as a test subject if they turn into a child..."

"I know... I know that already..." Ai -no Sherry- said, "I still have to try... If I gave up and let you and everyone else die I'd never forgive myself. But... If I ever manage to finish it then maybe..."

"_Time's up_, Sherry," She was interrupted as Gin came into the room and grabbed her arm dragging her out. But I really wondered what she had been about to say.

Days passed by without any meaning. I was treated like a lab rat (so much so that they had given me the codename 'Nezumi'), I wasn't ever allowed to leave that black room where I had first woke up; Ai was forced to work almost constantly. She and I were allowed direct contact for only an hour each day, I guess it was a way of keeping me from going insane and reminding her what she was working for.

Before long she had almost completed Apotoxin 4869 and was also close to perfecting an antidote for all the side effects, at that time she was also commissioned to start researching time travel -which I had also become her lab rat for. Like that, a year and a half passed by without any change.

"Conan..." Ai started, once again I found it strange that she'd started calling me that even when we were alone as if it were an affectionate nickname, she trailed off as though she didn't want to continue, but she gathered her courage anyway, "They killed Ran-san... she'd began to notice that she was being watched and put the pieces together... she guessed that the people following her were the same people that made 'Shinichi Kudo' and 'Conan Edogawa' disappear..."

I understood, but she continued anyway.

"She confronted the person following her to get information on where they had taken you. She was killed because of that..."

After all I'd been through in my new life as a lab rat I didn't cry, no matter how much pain I felt, no matter what happened; of course I didn't cry at that moment either, but that doesn't mean I wasn't hurting on the inside. Hearing what she'd said, for me, was like a five year old being told that the monster under the bed is real; my worst nightmare had been brought into reality.

"Ran..." I murmured a curse under my breath, knowing it was all because of me that she had been killed. If she'd just forgotten about me then... then at least she could have been happy.

"It's okay... Conan..." Ai said, by this time she understood me better than anyone else, she knew exactly how I felt but couldn't emphasize with me. She hesitated, looking around as if they might be listening -we knew they weren't, it's not as if we could make plans to escape with our situation as it was-, finally she said, "I know. You can't live in a world without Ran-san, even if you tried, you wouldn't be the headstrong, overprotective, idiot detective that I've always been watching... you've been waiting so long to return to Ran-san, and she's been waiting so long for you to return... but now..."

What she was saying was something I'd never expected to hear. I was confused, confounded, flabbergasted; but I was able to follow what she was saying, I could already guess what she was about to suggest. Even if I had predicted it and mentally prepared, I wasn't ready for the real thing, my eyes widened as she spoke.

"As you know the time machine isn't complete, it will only go to the past. They'll be using you to run experiments with it today, to test paradox theories within a time lapse of a few minutes..." She trailed off. I could see the tears in her eyes again, they were something that I knew only ever appeared in this room, something she let only me see. She continued with broken phrasing, "Change the time machine's temporal setting... return to the past, but not to a time from before you were Conan. With this... you can go back to being Shinichi Kudo. Don't tell anyone that you're from the future... if you cause a paradox I don't know what will happen so try to avoid that. Change the future. Don't worry about me, if you change the future the current me won't exist anymore... I'll be replaced by a me with slightly different memories... happier ones. You... you might also disappear... but as long as the future changes... as long as none of this happens, it'll be better... even without us."

I was hesitant, anybody would be, the thought that I might be about to erase my current self haunted me the entire time I spent in that black room until it was finally time to test the time machine.

This was it. The moment where I had to make a choice; do I try to change the past, or do I work in the present to strive for a better tomorrow? I laughed at myself for having so much internal turmoil over the decision; of course I was going to change the past. The current future was a dead end, at least by changing the past I might can find some hope. The only thing that really bothered me was leaving Ai behind, but I trusted in her, I believed that she would be happier this way and escaped into the past as she had asked.

For me, the world of the past was like a dream. I hadn't left that black room for a year and a half so seeing the familiar scenery and walking down familiar streets made me feel like I'd entered a fantasy world. I didn't know whether I should be happy or sad with all the nostalgia welling up inside me.

But I didn't forget my mission, at least not in the beginning. I would slowly change the past bit by bit, event by event, until slowly time began to tilt away from the future that I had come from.

And well... the rest is history. You already know how that turned out.


	25. The Paradox Of Three Truths

**Grr... still have stupid author's block for this story! The characters keep leading it away from ending but at this rate I'll run out of interesting events to throw in! It really needs to end or it'll start getting really crappy soon.  
**

**I just realized that I've completely forgotten to do something. Well in case anyone was confused (though I doubt any of you are), it's (super late) disclaimer time. Disclaimer: Baka, of course I don't own Meitantei Conan. If I did I would be doing this in the manga and not on fanfiction... that said I'd also be pretty rich if i owned it (which I don't)but Conan wouldn't have lasted as long as it has...  
**

**In this chapter; our heros (?) worry over something that may or may not be pointless, Shinichi acts really irresponsible, a few horrible jokes will be told, and secrets will be revealed! Sounds like a train wreck huh?  
**

**You wouldn't be reading this right now if you haven't been enjoying so far... I hope hope you like it this time too. As far as reviews go, Thank you! Please review this time too.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**25. The Paradox Of Three Truths  
**

Shinji told us all about what had happened in the future that had caused him to return to change the past. Just listening to it was hard, I have no idea how he'd managed to live through all of it, much less tell about it.

Still, there was something strange about his story, I got the feeling he was hiding something. If he was it was probably something we really were better off not knowing. I planned to ask him about it latter, but decided that I wouldn't force him to tell me anything.

"So there you have it. That's how we got into the current mess," Shinji said when no one had said anything in the tense silence after he'd finished telling his story.

The older Haibara was the first to react, "Then how is it that you can remember all of that now... unless..."

Unless what? None of us wanted to ask that question.

"That letter I gave you also explained how Paradox Syndrome works didn't it?" He asked, his expression made it clear that he would have preferred if it didn't, she nodded and he continued, "Basically when Paradox Syndrome makes someone forget future events they aren't supposed to remember them again until either during the event or after it has passed. To my knowledge there is no other way to reverse Paradox Syndrome. Thinking about it that would mean that either the kidnapping that happened just now was this timeline's equivalent of that event or we've just entered the stage where that event is about to happen."

"Theoretically there should be other ways," Haibara (the elder) added, "It doesn't necessarily mean that. There could be some kind of influence involved in this."

"What do you mean, Haibara?" I asked, wondering what sort of 'influence' she was referring to.

"That would be the paradox that you three have caused, if I had to venture a guess. It's impossible to really say for sure. We can't even be sure that this theory is correct."

The younger Haibara looked at her older counterpart and asked, "What would you say is the most likely outcome of a paradox like this one? If we knew that we could decide what to do from here on out..."

"I have no idea," The older replied in an annoyed tone, "any paradox, as far as I know, can have catastrophic effects or it could do absolutely nothing at all... it's completely unpredictable."

Then it's possible nothing will happen... but it could also potentially destroy the world... not exactly good news, but I'll take it...

Shinji appeared to be in deep thought for a moment before suddenly saying, "No, there are certain patterns that the effects of paradox follow... they wouldn't have been listed in the notes that you have because that letter was placed in the time machine by Ai before we did experiments on that day."

"Eh? A pattern... for paradoxes?"

"The notes Ai took from the experiment that day, I think it was... First theory; synchronicity, if temporal variants are similar enough mentally then one will disappear and the other will be left with both memory sets. Proven possible. Second theory; deletion, if the flow of time is changed too significantly then there is a possibility of the time stream 'deleting' the cause to prevent further changes to time. Proven possible. Third theory; disappearance, if the the past is changed in such a way that the 'traveler' will no longer exist in their current state then they will disappear. Proven possible... er... um... I can't remember the rest..."

"Remembering that much is amazing in itself," Shinichi commented, "It's been almost half a year since you entered this timeline, it's normal not to remember everything after so long..."

"Right... but that doesn't change the fact that this is really important," I responded, "Being able to understand what could happen as a result of the paradox really would help us plan our next move."

"I guess so... too bad he can't remember..."

"Yeah... can't remember..."

"AH-HA!" All three of us shouted with realization at once, "Paradox Syndrome again! ?"

"Yeah, yeah, because naturally anytime I can't remember something it would be because of that. Of course it isn't! If it were like that I probably wouldn't remember the first part either, it's just ordinary forgetfulness."

"Don't sweat the details, blame the paradox for that. Right Conan?"

"Eh? So you're just going to blame everything on either the paradox or Paradox Syndrome. That's irresponsible, I can't believe you're physically older than me."

"It works doesn't it?"

Suddenly there was a sound of someone shifting on the couch, "Shin... ichi?"

"Ran?" He asked, not that he'd been unaware that she was there, just a bit surprised that she'd woken up after so long.

She then asked one of the most annoying questions she could have possibly asked, "What are you three talking about? Something about 'perodocks' or whatever..."

_If she's been listening long enough to have heard paradox -albeit not very clearly- then it'll be hard to come up with an appropriate lie... of course the truth isn't an option. I guess it doesn't really matter for me to be thinking about this when the question was clearly directed at Shinichi..._

...

_Okay, I can do this... I can lie to my not-girlfriend, no big deal. Right, she overheard enough to have heard 'paradox' incoherently so I'm going to have to work that into my excuse... How on Earth am I supposed to do that?_

I look over at Conan, the look on his face makes it clear he has no intention of helping me. _Great, just dump the responsibility of keeping your lousy unbelievable secrets on me will you?_

"Err... Conan and Shinji were just talking about um... this weird anime that they've gotten hooked on, The Paradox of Three Truths, it's about a time traveling detective child so they thought I'd find it interesting... apparently," I said, hoping it sounded casual enough that she'd believe it. _Geez, couldn't I have come up with something better? I pretty much just put a bed sheet over the truth and called it a kid in a Halloween costume..._

"Oh that sounds cute, I'd like to watch it with you some time," She replied with a smile. _Oh God, she's so cute when she smiles like that... I mean- Oh crap, she wants to watch it with me! What now? I can't possibly tell her that no such anime exists!_

"But Ran-neechan... I don't think you'd like it very much," Shinji spoke up in a creepily cute childish voice, "Because Kinichi-kun, the child detective, solves cases by talking with the victim's ghosts... Aren't you afraid of ghosts neechan?"

He and Conan both snickered just slightly when he'd said 'Kinichi-kun'. I however couldn't help but be a bit puzzled. _'Kinichi-kun'? Is it an inside joke... or is it just another stupid joke on my name?_

"Ghosts..." Ran said calmly, but a slight shiver gave away the fact that she was indeed afraid of ghosts, of course I already knew that but I had forgotten.

I tried to discreetly give Shinji a thumbs up to say 'thanks for helping out'. I'm not sure he noticed.

"Oh! But then what was it that Conan-kun was saying just now... it was something like 'you're physically older' or something... but why specify physically? It's not like he could mentally be older than you, right?" Ran suddenly said, convincing me that she might actually be cut out for a job as a detective after all.

Of all things why did she have to hear that part clearly?

"Um... I was just quoting what one of the ghosts said to Kinichi-kun, you see the ghost had died when he was really young and so since ghosts don't age he still looked like a five year old, then Kinichi-kun said something silly so ghost-chan said 'I can't believe you're physically older than me'," Conan said, with a childish tone similar to that of Shinji. It was so creepy hearing him talk like that when I'd only ever heard him talk with a serious tone before other than when we first met at Tropical Land.

_Clearly both Shinji and Conan have way too much experience pretending to be normal first graders, I almost feel sorry for them. Almost._ I _would_ have felt sorry for them if she'd believed his excuse, but she didn't seem to be buying it.

"That sounds strange... come to think of it I haven't heard of that anime before, Shinji and his friends are always talking about Kamen Yaiba..." Ran said with a tone that as a detective I was able to easily recognize, a tone that told me that she knew we were lying and was trying to figure out the truth. Knowing Ran she wouldn't stop until she figured it out. She continued with the same innocent yet accusing tone, "You three aren't lying are you?"

_Crap. What now? If she knows we're lying then there's no reason to keep up this charade any longer... but we can't tell her the truth, that would put her in danger, AND she'd think we're all crazy!_

While I was mentally panicking -though I made sure not to let it show- Shinji sighed and stepped forward, "How about we make a deal."

Ran seemed a bit surprised by his sudden serious tone, but had clearly seen him act serious enough times that she didn't seem concerned enough to ask about his sudden change in character. She nodded, seeming just as serious.

"Me, Conan, and Shinichi. You can ask each of us only one question (but it can't be like 'what's going on', 'are you lying' or 'what did so-and-so mean by...') and we'll each answer honestly, we're aloud to answer as vaguely as we want to but our answer has to be true," He said, his expression was twisted into a smug grin that betrayed that he had the utmost confidence in this plan, "So... Will you accept?"

Ran looked at him with an expression I'd never seen before; I'm not sure if but she seemed uncertain, she was hesitating, but the look she gave had an air of understanding and acceptance.

"I will."

"Then go ahead and ask."


	26. Interrogation 101

**How on Earth have I made this story go on so long! ? ! ? ! It started in my mind as just 'something bad happened in the future so Shinichi goes back in time to fix the problem'... how did it become this complicated... the world may never know.**

**Man, it took me so long to come up with the question to ask Conan... the others were somewhat easy but I didn't want her to ask perfect questions when they'll definitely answer honestly, so Shinichi's was the toss out because it's easier that way (plus it led to a nice moment), Shinji is the best at bending and side-stepping the truth so he gets a difficult question.  
**

**I had planned for this chapter to include one more part but it's already the 2nd longest chapter so far... it's about double the length of chapter three as it is... so please make do with this much.  
**

**You wouldn't be reading this right now if you haven't been enjoying so far... I hope hope you like it this time too. As far as reviews go, Thank you! Please review this time too.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**26. Interrogation 101  
**

Ran accepted my offer, but she didn't seem sure what questions to ask to who. I'm sure that she had a pile of things she wanted to ask, but most of those would have been directed at Shinichi; 'what kind of case is it you've been working on', 'why do you always stay away so long', she might even be so inclined to ask 'what are your feelings for me'.

In comparison I doubted she had much she would want to ask Conan or me, in the other timeline Ran had suspected that perhaps 'Conan' was Shinichi, but in this timeline she'd never shown any signs that she thought 'Conan Edogawa' or 'Shinji Kudo' might actually be the Shinichi that she was waiting for, and even if she had it would have been a simple feat to brush her suspicions aside.

It was because of this that despite my confidence that she wasn't likely to ask anything that would give away the truth I was still quite nervous to see what kinds of questions she would ask. In theory the chance of her asking a question that would actually lead to the truth was low, at least if she were a normal person, but with her uncanny luck I wouldn't be surprised if all three questions wind up pointing her in the right direction to figure the rest out herself. Still, I had resigned myself -and I trust my temporal variant counterparts had as well- to answer whatever she did ask honestly to the best of my ability without getting her involved with the dangers of the situation.

"Shinji," She said, addressing the first question to me, "Are you really Shinichi's brother?"

_Well, crap. That's a good one. Wait... is my family relation to Shinichi really the most suspicious thing there is about me to her? I should look just like he did as a child, it's stranger if we aren't related. She's not going to ask about paradox or mental age? Still... it's a good question...  
_

"To me Shinichi-niichan is Shinichi-niichan, if that's what you mean," I replied, trying to keep a hint of childishness in my tone.

"That's not what I meant. Please tell me... are the two of you really brothers or not?" She said. It was still the same question, still addressed to me; however answering the same way as before would ruin the flow of the conversation and confirm to her that she had been close to hitting the nail on the head so to speak. Not to mention if I gave another answer that vague to a yes-or-no question I was almost guaranteed to see just how strong the Kanto karate champion was first hand.

"I suppose we are," I replied after a brief moment of thinking, Shinichi and Conan both looked at me as if to ask 'what happened to answering honestly?', I continued with an explanation, "Both of our parents are the same, the biggest difference between us is our age, and we are both boys. That means we're brothers right?"

Ran appeared to be dissatisfied with the answer, causing me to wonder not only why she apparently thought Shinichi and I were _not _brothers but also who she had thought I was, whatever the case may have been she seemed convinced enough to not ask a third time. Conan and Shinichi both had thoughtful looks as they clearly tried to decide whether or not the three of us really did count as brothers by the explanation I'd given. _It counts right?_

_So who's next?_

I couldn't help but watch Ran's expression, there were so many twisting emotions that she had become nearly to read... or maybe I just don't know her as well as I used to. No, this view is probably much clearer than back then, in the past I was always blinded by my own emotions, looking at her then I only ever saw what I wanted to see or what I didn't want to see, never both; but as I am now I was able to recognize the things I hadn't been able to see when I was Shinichi, or even when I was Conan.

She was hurt that the Shinichi she was waiting for was hiding something from her, she was curious as to what he was hiding, afraid of what he _might be _hiding, excited for what he _could be_ hiding, happy that she was going to get some answers, disappointed by my vague answer, concerned that the three of us were involved in something dangerous, glad to be able to see Shinichi after so long, and more than anything else she was confused by all these emotions running loose inside of her. Just looking at her I was more tempted to tell her the entire truth than ever before, if only because knowing would decrease her worries.

Ultimately, I decided to leave it up to fate, if she was meant to know the truth then her questions would be ones that would lead towards it, otherwise she just wasn't meant to know.

...

Just what was Shinji thinking? Giving Ran the right to ask each of us a question that we would answer honestly, has he gone crazy? Even if Shinichi or I had objected then it would have only been more suspicious, I could only hope that Shinji actually had a plan and wasn't just bluffing.

Sure there wasn't a high chance of Ran asking the right questions but there was still a chance of something like 'what happened after you left me at Tropical Land' being asked to Shinichi or me being asked 'how old are you really'. If either of us were asked something like that then there would almost be no way around telling the entire truth with the condition that we're supposed to be completely honest.

Actually thinking about it now she could even ask me something like Takagi did that one time in an elevator 'Just who on Earth are you', now that would be one interesting question to have to answer,_ I'm_ not even sure what I would say my _real_ identity is anymore. After all I've spent almost a year and a half as Conan Edogawa, these days I'm pretty sure I'd respond to my alias quicker than I would to my original name, I've gotten so used to being Conan that lately I don't mind the idea of never being able to return to being Shinichi Kudo so much anymore...

"Conan-kun," Ran started, "What did you really mean when you were talking about Shinichi being 'physically older' than you? That implies that you are mentally older than him, so how old are you mentally?"

"A-re-re? Isn't that two questions?" I asked, wondering if it counted while I pointlessly kept up the act of being a normal seven or eight year old (at this point it's hard to be sure, time travel and all). I stole a quick glance at Shinji as he was the one that made up the _game_ in the first place.

"Just answer them both, the answer is basically the same anyway."

"Fine," I responded, answering Ran's questions, "It's as you say, I am mentally older than Shinichi, while he is physically older than me. _*sigh*_ Unless I've gotten the math wrong, mentally I'm almost eighteen. I'm smart enough as a detective that I can beat the kokosei meitantei Shinichi Kudo in a deduction battle, so it makes sense that I'm mentally older right?"

_Why did I wind up with a question that was even more revealing than the one Shinji got? At least I managed to bend the truth a bit, or if she was already thinking on the right track I may have just given her a hint... well I'm sure it'll all turn out fine._

_It's all up to Shinichi now.  
_

...

Now I was getting nervous. I was the only one left and the other two had gotten such difficult questions. Sure I'm confident in my ability to lie (not that I'm bragging) but in this situation where I'm supposed to tell the truth no matter what... but I don't want to tell her about the truth that I've been hiding from her since these two time travelers appeared, she'd only get involved in a dangerous situation.

Maybe if she asks me anything incriminating (for lack of a better word) I can answer vaguely then change the subject, that seems to work for Conan and Shinji all the time.

Speaking of those two, I could hear them whispering somewhere behind me.

"Hey, are you thinking what I'm thinking Shinji?"

"Yeah, she's probably going to ask him _that_..."

_Wait... what are they talking about? What is '_that'_?_

"...But if she asks _that _he'll probably answer her like from _that time_."

"This is bad... we haven't had the chance to warn him about the one from _that time_... well I don't think she's asked her father about _that_ yet so it's fine but still..."

_seriously... what is _'that'_? When was '_that time'_? What __does any of this have to do with Ran's father? What did they forget to warn me about... this sounds like something I really should know?_

"Shinichi..." Ran started, she trailed off, her face was covered in a bright red blush.

_Here it comes..._

"Why do you keep hiding things from me?" She asked but I could tell that wasn't the question she really wanted to ask me, "Doesn't it matter at all how I feel?"

_... Eh?_

_Is she asking... if I care about how she feels or not? Isn't that... -holy crap! She's really asking me if I like her! Which I do but... I was hoping to tell her in a cooler way than something like this..._

Whatever mean thing it is you're thinking about me for being surprised to hear that stop thinking it right now, it's not as though you could have saw it coming either. Although judging from Conan and Shinji's expressions they had predicted it... does that make this '_that_'?

_Wait a minute... Conan and Shinji are also 'Shinichi Kudo', so it follows that they also like Ran, right? Well I guess it's probably hard for Shinji because his Ran died and all... but what about Conan? The Ran from his time is probably still alive and he's stuck in this time period... not to mention he's a child. No, no, no I need to stop thinking about this... it'll just make everything awkward!_

_ Right, I need to answer her! _

"Ran, I lo-" I started, but I couldn't finish.

It was just to awkward to confess to Ran while there were two other people in the room that were technically me and probably also had crushes on Ran in the same room. You would have probably felt the same if it were possible for you to be in a similar situation._  
_

"Er, how about I answer you at my house..." I said trying not to let how awkward I felt show on my face (I doubt I was very successful), I continued, "We'll come back afterwards."

"Um... ok," Ran replied, still blushing.


	27. A Rose By Any Other Name

**Sorry this chapter took so long I was busy er um cleaning my room (read: watching anime, and reading manga); also I couldn't think of a good new name for the time traveling Haibara, she kinda needed one you know...( **** I couldn't decide in the end so if you guys like any of the ones that showed up or have any suggestions then I'd be very happy, but if no one says anything I'll use the name she used in that one movie...)  
**

**As S. Morganstern once said, 'Everyone has a right to some privacy in their lives at some point.' So please don't kill me for what I'm about to do, yes, _not_ killing me would be much appreciated. :P  
**

**For this chapter there's a lot of comic relief, I play around with Japanese (which I only speak/read brokenly so I apologize if it's flawed) btw: Google is your friend, I gave kanji so you could look them up if you want.  
**

**You wouldn't be reading this right now if you haven't been enjoying so far... I hope hope you like it this time too. As far as reviews go, Thank you! Please review this time too.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**27. A Rose By Any Other Name  
**

Shinichi and Ran had just left the professor's house and headed over to his house to have their big romantic moment. For those of us left behind all we could do was speculate as to what might be happening over there.

"What was that you two were whispering about before?" Ai (younger) asked suddenly.

"Hmmm? You heard that?" I replied, "We were just saying that Ran was definitely going to ask him something about his feelings."

"And that he'd probably answer with something like 'I love you more than anyone else on this planet,'" Shinji added, his carefree tone making him sound a bit eccentric.

Ai (older) replied in a cheeky, teasing tone, "That's awfully romantic for you to say, why would you need to warn him about that?"

"It's the same as how Ran's father proposed to her mother."

"Oh, I see, so you don't want to do something that's the same as that idiot detective," Ai replied, "But you seem to think that she wouldn't know about that in this time, so it's fine right?"

"But if she ever finds out about it later it'll be dead embarrassing..."

"Oh, come to think of it... we still need to give you a new name!"

The older Haibara looked at me with a confused expression, "Why would I need a new name, I've already been going by this alias for so long..."

She stopped herself, probably realizing where this was going.

"The you from this time period has already gone to school as Ai Haibara, so you can't go by that name otherwise there will be two Ai Haibaras running around, and the black organization would probably notice. Therefore we need to come up with a new name for you... well the two of you can be sisters so keeping the Haibara part is fine..."

"What about 'Hakujō' (薄情), It's perfect for someone as tsundere as you," Shinji suggested, looking a bit too proud of himself as he wore his usual devious smile, "and we could call you Haku-chan for short."

"I would have to be an idiot to let myself be called that," She replied in a tone befitting the name.

"Then how about 'Kirai' (嫌い)?"

"That one's even worse."

"'Hiki' (氷姫), then?" I suggested thinking back to the first one that Shinji had come up with.

Shinji objected immediately, "that doesn't really suit her... well it does but... it'd feel weird calling her that."

The younger Haibara suddenly said, "You really do have a horrible naming sense don't you? Let's see what the professor can come up with before she winds up with a stupid name for the rest of her life."

The professor gave a proud laugh as if to say 'oh you want to hear what I can come up with' before saying, "What about 'Anzen' (安全) or 'Chō' (蝶)?"

"Hmmm... maybe we need to put more thought into this..."

...

I'd just confessed to Ran.

Afterwards she and I stood in silence for a long time, neither of us daring to talk, but we both knew what the other was thinking. The silence lasted so long I contemplated whether or not we should go back to the others, but we both knew that would be awkward.

Suddenly Ran spoke up.

"I know... whatever it is you're keeping a secret, I know you're doing it to protect me... but if it's dangerous that you think I need protecting then you shouldn't be facing this on your own..." She clearly had more she wanted to say but she couldn't seem to find the words, I took my chance and interrupted.

"You're wrong about one thing. I'm not facing it on my own, actually.. it's not even my problem; I'm helping those little boys with their problem, the little girls too," I hoped I sounded cooler than it sounds writing this out now, "If I got you involved, you would only worry about me more..."

"I wouldn't! I don't think I could possibly worry about you any more than I already do!"

I said looking downward so she wouldn't be able to see what kind of expression I was making, "You would. You can only say that now because you have no idea what I've gotten mixed up in... it's a difficult situation that transcends time and defies logic, and the deeper I get into it, the more complicated it becomes."

She grabbed my hands, clasping them between her own with tears beginning to grow at the edges of her eyes.

"Then tell me, if I knew I could try to help! I could at least stay out of your way!"

I wanted to tell her everything, I really did. I could feel it in the way her hand gripped mine at that moment, I saw it in her eyes, and I heard it in her voice; not knowing was hurting her, far beyond what I could ever imagine.

I gulped.

_Conan and Shinji are going to kill me for this..._

I sighed, resolving myself to do the last thing I thought I'd ever do since hearing the truth myself.

Then finally I told her the truth.


	28. Who I Am And Who I Used To Be

**Some comic relief from Shinichi and Shinji, and some strangely deep meaningful words from Conan! You better prepare yourself mentally!  
**

** I'm proud to announce that I've got the story back under my control (I think), so no more unexpected developments from these mischievous characters, I'll be able to head towards the ending no problem!  
**

**You wouldn't be reading this right now if you haven't been enjoying so far... I hope hope you like it this time too. As far as reviews go, Thank you! Please review this time too.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**28. Who I Am And Who I Used To Be  
**

Seeing the look on Ran's face I almost burst out laughing. I spilled, I'd told her the entire truth, all at once without stopping -if I had stopped I wouldn't have been able to make myself start again. It had taken her a moment but her mind was finally beginning to register everything I'd said; the result was a look of confusion, horror, surprise, shock, and worry all tossed into a blender together.

"So then Shinji and Conan-kun are..." She stuttered.

"Both me from the future after having been given a poison."

"So when I bathed and slept with Shinji I was bathing and sleeping with..."

"A shrunken twenty-eight year old Shinichi Kudo. Wait... You _bathed_ and _slept_ with him! ?"

"...only once."

_I couldn't help but wonder why I hadn't been told about that before, that was something I really should have known. Now I'm going to need to go beat up Shinji... and Conan too, for good measure, who knows what they've done in their original timelines..._

...

When Shinichi and Ran made their way back I was about to ask how the confession went but something about the tension in the atmosphere made me feel like I needed to hide under a sofa. With just a glace it was apparent that Conan felt the same way.

Just from the looks on their faces and the almost murderous vibes I was getting from both of them that he had just went ahead and told her everything.

"So you told her?" I asked, keeping it vague just in case he actually hadn't.

"Yeah, I told her," He replied, then he came up close to me and whispered in my ear with an accusatory tone, "Why didn't you tell me you've bathed and slept with Ran?"

"I told you there were reasons I definitely didn't want my identity to be known, she'll kill me with her karate you know. Besides..." I trailed off as I realized that what I was about to say was a bad idea but it was too late not to say it, I continued anyway, "It's only happened twice."

"Twice? Ran said it only happened once?"

"Um... that is... it happened in my timeline, and it was repeated in this one..." I replied, hoping he wouldn't be so angry.

"Then you already knew it was going to happen before it did?"

_I can already see where this is going..._"It was unavoidable, she insisted on bathing with me, I actually tried to refuse _both_ times. As for the sleeping... she was lonely, and came asking if she could sleep with me, as a six/seven year old I could refuse... get your mind out of the gutter."

The look on his face when he realized that he couldn't argue with that was priceless, he realized that he would have done the same in either situation. Well, not the bath, with his current body he'd probably die or blood loss in the bath.

"And you haven't done anything else that I should know about?" He asked, his tone made it painfully clear that he thought I probably had but that he was giving me the benefit of the doubt anyway.

"She's a bit young for me don't you think?" I countered him, making sure there was enough sarcasm in my voice that he could tell it was more or less a joke.

"Geez, don't act your age, it's creepy! The last thing we need is a seven year old that like twenty to thirty year olds running around."

"Would you rather me act the age I appear to be?" I asked in a childish tone, for good measure I added, "Shinichi-niichan?"

"That's creepy too..."

...

Ran had come over to talk to me, presumably because talking to Shinji now that she knew the truth about him would be extremely awkward, I at least hadn't been living with her in this timeline.

"Cona- I mean Shinichi..." She trailed off, she probably felt strange, unsure of what to call me.

"'Conan' is fine. It'll just be confusing if you start calling Shinji and I Shinchi."

"You really are Shinichi then?" she asked, on her face she wore the understanding smile I'd seen so many times in my original timeline. She looked so beautiful like that, I almost felt guilty that I wasn't the same as her Shinichi. I nodded, seeing no need to answer aloud. She continued, "It's unbelievable... I can't even imagine what you've been through..."

"I myself find it hard to believe sometimes. But every time I look in the mirror it reminds me that this is my reality, and just how little I can do to change it," I responded, I tried to smile, but I'm sure it came out looking sad.

For just a moment her smile changed there was an uncomfortable flicker of sorrow before she returned to her wise and understanding smile, "I see... you really are the same as him... then does that mean you also..."

"Yeah, I feel the same way that he does... about you," I was a bit embarrassed to say it, I was probably blushing a bright crimson as I continued, "but for me the situation has changed... I've changed. I'm not the same 'Shinichi Kudo' I was before; I've already sacrificed my pride, I'm not as naive as I once was, the world as I knew it has completely disappeared from my sights... as I am now I know that I can never go back to my happy daily life where I would smile and wait for just the right moment to tell you how I really felt..."

"Conan-kun, I-"

"Don't worry about hurting my feelings by you being with Shinichi, I'll be happy as long as you're happy."

...

Apparently, while Ran and I were out they had decided on a new name for the time traveling Haibara, and they'd also decided what we should do next.

Let me be the first to say, the plan was dangerous, it was flashy, maybe even stupid... but that wouldn't stop me from doing it. With Ran knowing the full truth she was in more danger now than ever, if I just let the Organization hang around she's bound to get hurt at some point; it didn't matter how much danger I was in if she was in trouble I wouldn't mind an all or nothing bet like this.

I already knew without a doubt that Shinji would be willing to go to hell and back to keep the future that he witnessed from happening again, as for Conan the look in his eyes told me that he would never stop trying to return to his Ran. In this regard the three of us were the same.

So when Shinji proposed their ridiculous plan I didn't hesitate to agree.

I trust those two, they know better than anyone what we're dealing with.


	29. One Long Night

**Shinji is an evil genius... he comes up with suspicious plots way too easily. I get the feeling that if he weren't a detective he'd make a _very_ good criminal...  
**

**You wouldn't be reading this right now if you haven't been enjoying so far... I hope hope you like it this time too. As far as reviews go, Thank you! Please review this time too.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**29. One Long Night  
**

Now then, I'm sure you're all wondering what this dangerous, flashy, stupid, mysterious plan of ours is. Naturally it can be only one thing, instead of attacking the Black organization directly, we'll basically be asking them to come to us.

'Shinichi Kudo' is going to solve a case and proudly take the credit as though he had never been poisoned by Gin and Vodka. The organization will of course think that's strange considering he's supposed to be dead, and they'll probably come to kill him for good, but we'll be ready for them.

The biggest issue with this plan is that we can't be certain of exactly what the Black Organization will do when they realize that Shinichi is alive, but we'll handle that when we get there.

Of course the case he solves will have to be a big one, one that will instantly give him a large amount of publicity. How do we make sure that happens? Easy. Three boys that can't seem to go anywhere without running into a murder case walk around Tokyo together with a girl with unreasonably good luck, we probably won't make it five feet without a corpse appearing out of nowhere.

Joking aside that really _isn't_ what we intended to do...

The truth of the matter is that the 'case' Shinichi would be 'solving' was something Conan and I were arranging ahead of time, not that anyone would have been able to tell.

At this point you're almost definitely wondering; what kind of case Conan and I could arrange that would be flashy enough that Shinichi Kudo would get a massive amount of publicity without us landing ourselves in jail. It's simple, though I suppose it would have been quite difficult if we weren't friends with a certain well known criminal.

The international phantom thief 1412. Kaitou Kid.

...

Conan and Shinji didn't tell me why I was doing this. They told me that for that plan to work I needed to catch Kaito- I mean Kaitou Kid, but he's our ally right? Why am I trying to arrest someone that's on our side?

Sure if I could capture this super flashy thief my publicity would go through the roof, but that didn't settle the matter that he's not actually a bad guy.

_Whatever, I'm sure they have some trick planned that they aren't telling me about..._

The target of the night's heist was a large black diamond known as 'death's heart'. Apparently there was some strange legend about all of it's previous owners dying tragically painful deaths or something like that, but I don't really believe in that sort of thing. Kaito- er I mean Kid, clearly stated that he would be arriving on his hang glider around midnight. Naturally it can be assumed that he would be leaving on his hang glider from the roof of the building as per usual -really I have no idea how the Kaitou Kid task force has yet to catch on to his favorite place to leave from.

With Kaito's amazing skills as a magician, I highly doubted that I would be able to keep him from taking the jewel (especially with my knowing why he became a thief to begin with) but as for making sure he can't get away with it... that should be a simple feat. So I waited for him on the roof.

But when he arrived something seemed different about the thief. His actions matched how I imagined they would be, but something was strange.

He smirked as he his prize up into the moonlight, and spoke in a familiar voice after an almost disturbing chuckle, "This one isn't it either."

I took the cue and came out from where I was hiding, "Yo, Kai-er Kid, don't think you can get away this time."

"How rude, this is no way to treat a friend Meitantei-kun," the white-clad thief replied.

"I'm not sure why but for some reason, capturing you is part of the plan," I said as I got ready to use the tranquilizer watch that I'd borrowed from Conan, "Please, don't think badly of me for doing this, Kid."

"It's fine, I was already informed of this plan beforehand," he laughed, his face showing a smug expression, "Though I must say, your observational skills aren't quite as sharp as I thought."

_What does he mean by that... is there something I haven't noticed...?_

Not bothering to look around in case it was just a bluff I shot him with the tranquilizer. After making sure that the thief was indeed unconscious and not just faking it I carried him down to where the Kaitou Kid task force was waiting, I gloated happily to the press and task force alike about how I had caught the uncatchable Kaitou Kid.

Afterwards Ran, Conan, and I went out to eat dinner at a good restaurant (a ramen place Conan knew of with noodles so good they're supposedly to die for) as a celebration of the success of our plan.

It took a while before I finally realized that something was missing.

"Um... Conan, where's Shinji?" I asked hesitantly.

Conan looked up at me with an expression that seemed to say 'are you stupid?' before he replied, "The tranquilizer probably wore off thirty minutes ago so he's probably being questioned by Nakamori-keibu right now... well in any case he should be home soon..."

_So that wasn't Kaito... that was Shinji... I just arrested myself, no kidding... my life is so screwed up..._

...

Being yelled at by Nakamori-keibu is no fun. Naturally, I more or less deserved it, being a phantom thief even if only for one night.

_But geez, what a way to spend the time I have in this body... growing older just to commit a crime and get arrested._

Having taken a single pill that should have normally lasted twelve hours I predicted that I would have six hours before my teenaged body turned back into my small child body. When that happened the police would just assume that Kaitou Kid escaped because there's no way he could ever turn into a child, one of the police officers would take me home and Nakamori-keibu would shout strings of curses at the sky for Kid's escape.

_Two hours left..._

_This is going to be a long night..._


	30. A Casual Acceptance Of The End

**We'll finally be getting back into the action! after this chapter there won't be as much comic relief so please be mentally prepared!  
**

**Looking back on it now some of Shinji's peculiar skills might be a bit too amazing... he's an unstoppable force... his laid back attitude is just so weird in comparison to everything he's been through, I guess when you have as much life experience as he does something like assassins is just a casual conversation starter...  
**

**You wouldn't be reading this right now if you haven't been enjoying so far... I hope hope you like it this time too. As far as reviews go, Thank you! Please review this time too.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**30. A Casual Acceptance Of The End  
**

When Shinji finally got home (because while I'm not in hiding he's staying with me, his back story is that he is my younger brother after all) he looked exhausted.

"That Nakamori-keibu... it took another two hours after I transformed into a child to convince him that I really wasn't Kaitou Kid," He said with an annoyed twitch, "How dumb can he be, it's impossible for Kaitou Kid to suddenly turn into a child!"

_But you did, didn't you... _I couldn't help but laugh quietly to myself at his hypocrisy.

After an hour of ranting and raving about what is and isn't impossible Shinji finally seemed to calm down, making that serious face he makes when he's about to say something that will completely throw off his cute little kid image.

"Right, so while I was in jail did any assassins come after you?"

_Yes, that would be a perfect example of something that would completely throw off the cute little kid image..._ I sighed, "No. Nobody has tried to kill me in the time that you were gone. I've made international news though, plus it hasn't gotten out yet that Kid '_escaped_'."

He looked at me in such a way that it was clear he didn't appreciate the sarcasm in my tone, but he soon looked away, his eyes seemed distant in what I recognized to be a contemplative gaze, "That's strange... I thought for sure they would have tried to kill you as soon after the heist as possible so that they could try to pass it off as a murder done by one of Kaitou Kid's fans..."

_Why is it that almost any time he makes a deduction like that I get the feeling he's predicting the future..._

"Why didn't you tell me it was you pretending to be Kid out there?" I asked, feeling the need to change the subject from how I'd probably be dying soon.

"Huh? That?" He looked at me as if I'd just asked whether or not the sky was blue before replying, "You wouldn't have acted so serious if you knew it was me, I thought it would be more fun if you thought I was really Kaito."

_So it was just for fun? Figures..._

"Well I'm going to go to bed now, I need to get some sleep before school tomorrow," I said with a yawn, "You can do whatever you want..."

I wasn't really tired, but I knew that I would need to be ready for anything from now on. At any moment that Black Organization could send people to kill me, or maybe they would try to figure out how I survived instead...

It doesn't really matter what happens to me... as long as Ran is fine then everything will have worked out perfectly.

Those two will definitely makes sure she isn't endangered. I trust them to protect her if anything happens to me.

...

"You managed to get out of jail then?" Conan asked when he saw me at school the next day, "I was almost certain that Nakamori-keibu would think you -Kaitou Kid- had managed to pull a trick that would disguise you as a child..."

"He did think that, it took two hours to convince him otherwise..." I replied, laughing to hide my annoyance over the whole ordeal.

As we walked into the classroom Ayumi spotted me and for a moment looked almost worried, "You don't look so good Shinji-kun... do you have a cold?"

"Nah, I'm fine. It's just that I hardly got any sleep last night," I said, before remembering that Ayumi is a normal girl and I shouldn't act so serious in front of her, I laughed like a kid as I added, "You see I thought maybe one of Kaitou Kid's fans would try to hurt Shinichi-niichan for catching Kid so I was up all night keeping watch to make sure he was safe."

"And that niichan of yours just slept peacefully as you kept watch?" Ai asked as she also came into the classroom, "I suppose he also went to school without a worry that he might be in danger."

I may as well say this to clear up any confusion, this is the younger Haibara, the elder one isn't going to school and is instead just staying at the professors house doing various scientist-type things.

"Yeah, it would have been strange if he hadn't gone to school, especially if there is anyone targeting him," I replied.

Ayumi's eyes were sparkling, making me wish I hadn't mentioned that Shinichi's life may be in danger, she spoke with an excited tone, "Don't worry the shonen tantei will definitely protect Shinichi-oniisan! You can count on us to help!"

_Right, right, how could I have forgotten their habit of getting involved in any case they possibly can, especially if it's a real case like_ this...If I said anything to reject the offer it would only make them more determined, I cast a casual glace at Conan hoping my message would be conveyed.'_ A little help please Conan?'_

He had the smirk of a true detective even though he was just bluffing for the moment, "By my deduction we'll be given another important case today. Ayumi, Mitsuhiko, Genta... can I trust you three to handle the other case while Haibara, Shinji, and I make sure that Shinichi-niichan doesn't come in harms way?"

The fact that they were being entrusted with a case by the already famous primary school detective seemed to satisfy them, though it would probably turn out that any case that did arrive for the shonen tantei that day would likely entail finding someone's lost cat...

...

Have you ever had the feeling that you were being watched? Have you ever known you were being watched by someone who wanted to kill you? I admit that in your case the first one is likely much more realistic... but in my case it was the later that was occurring. Ever since leaving home for school I'd had the odd sensation that I was being watched, and every detective instinct I had was telling me that I was in danger and that I should run.

However, I didn't run. It seemed that as long as I wasn't alone they weren't going to make a move, or perhaps they were able to sense just how ridiculously strong Ran is and wanted to avoid facing off with her upon coming to either kidnap or kill me. Strange that the second of those two reasonings actually felt more realistic than the first, I suppose that just goes to show exactly how ridiculous our situation is at the moment.

I was a bit surprised when I arrived home and there was no one there, I'd have thought that Shinji would be waiting on me so he could protect me with his paranoia. I was_ not_ surprised however when I heard a faint clicking sound behind me, but even so it made me flinch to hear that faint sound break what had before been silence.

_A gun._

I took a few steps forward before turning around slowly to get a look at the person that had come to kill me.

"Gin, I presume?"

His eyes narrowed, probably wondering how I knew of that name. He seemed to quickly decide that it didn't really matter how I knew what to call him when I shouldn't have ever heard that name previously and that it was more important how I managed to survive being poisoned. He didn't lower his gun despite my being completely vulnerable.

I figured it would be best if I played along despite having never directly met Gin myself.

"Not going to answer? Should I take that to mean I'm right?" I asked, not letting my nervousness make it's way into my tone.

_Is he always this quiet? Can't he say some kind of cliqued bad guy line at least?_

"You've already killed me once, how many times does 'Shinichi Kudo' have to die before you'll be satisfied?"

"I'm interested in hearing about how you managed to survive dying once."

_Finally. A reaction. Now we're getting somewhere. _I smirked despite the fact that I wasn't confident in what I was about to do, "That's a secret I'll drag to the grave... assuming I ever make it there."

He realized that I didn't intend to tell him how I survived the poison (not that I actually know, seeing as I myself wasn't poisoned), the finger he held to the trigger of his gun moved backwards just slightly as he...

_Fwt-_

Shinji had come up behind Gin with his tranquilizer watch before Gin could shoot me.

"What are you waiting for, you still have Conan's watch right? Hit him with that one too."

Somewhat creeped out by his ability to casually do such suspicious things I did as he asked and used Conan's tranquilizer watch on him as well, leaving us with a very sleepy Gin and no idea what to do with him.


	31. A Mundane Dream

**At this rate it'll be over pretty soon, the ending may be a bit clique but it's probably for the best... well I could change my mind before I get there so who really knows at this point... I was somewhat tempted to make it last 42 chapters and give it a really dark ending but I don't think that will happen... as I said, the ending I'm heading towards right now is somewhat clique.  
**

**Also I took advantage of the current situation and let Shinji call Gin a rather ridiculous impromptu nickname... so don't cough up blood when you see it okay? I'm not a fujoshi, just and otaku, so don't read too much into it. There's also a rather laid back confrontation... really Shinji is waaay too casual about this...  
**

**I'm seriously becoming surprised at the number of hits this story has gotten... I mean I've been writing this for less than a month so having almost 4000 hits already... just wow. Seriously, thanks guys, this story would have become really lame if it weren't for all of you being so supportive. ****Arigato ****gozaimasu**!  


**-._.-._.-**

**31. A Mundane Dream  
**

Shinji and Shinichi were both staring at the man that was asleep in the guest bedroom of their house as though it had been no feat at all to catch him.

They'd used duct-tape to make sure he wouldn't be able to get away once he woke up, and Shinji had searched his clothing and confiscated anything with even the most minute potential of being dangerous. One of them kept watch at all times, though with his current body I doubt that Shinji could do much more than talk if Gin were to wake up.

I couldn't help but notice an insane spark in Shinji's eyes, he seemed to be keeping it under control but it was apparent that he was holding on to some deep seated hatred towards Gin -not that I don't hate Gin but Shinji's hatred seemed deep enough that he might try to kill him if left alone too long. I deduced that it was Gin that had probably personally killed the Ran from his time period.

Meanwhile Shinichi didn't seem to notice, in fact he seemed to still be annoyed that he hadn't recognized that the Kaitou Kid he caught was actually Shinji. Really, he should just be glad that Nakamori-keibu was too busy ranting and gloating about finally catching Kid (even if he hadn't really been the one that did the catching) to check Kid's fingerprints or even take off his hat and monocle; though I admit it'd have been rather interesting if they had considering it would have been discovered that Kid was 'Shinichi Kudo', the media would have had a field day with that.

"So what do we do now? Wait for him to wake up," Shinichi asked, though I guess he was really just making sure we were all on the same page.

"Five minutes..." Shinji said suddenly, "the tranquilizers should have worn off five minutes ago if my calculations are correct. He's just faking now so that he can get a good idea of what's going on... probably... not that I really expect us to be able to get any information out of him anyway, but if we handed him over to the police we'd lose any chance at getting information we have, besides he's high enough in the Organization that I wouldn't be surprised if he could escape from jail or perhaps they would even take the risk to bust him out."

"Is that so..." Shinichi replied nervously, he soon looked around and noticed me standing in the doorway, he appeared to be thankful to have something to distract him from awkwardly conversing with Shinji, "Oh, Conan, you're here."

"Yeah, Shinji sent me a text to tell me that the two of you actually managed to catch Gin, so I came over right away," I responded, "So, Shinji, what's your plan this time? You do have a plan right?"

"We'll just try and get any information we can then we'll hand him over to Akai. Once they realize that Gin's been caught they'll either send more people after Shinichi because of how dangerous he is to them or they'll give up altogether on him because he's too dangerous. Depending on how they react we'll have to react accordingly," The physically youngest yet mentally oldest of us sighed, "now if you two would please stop questioning me before sleeping beauty *he gestured agitatedly to Gin who was presumably still feigning sleep* over there assumes that I'm the smartest out of the three of us, or otherwise our leader."

I had to fight myself to hold back a chuckle. 'Sleeping_ beauty'? He's using a bizarre unfitting nickname in attempt to dispel some of his angst? I thought he was more mature than that at least..._

"Alright, Shinji, but you better explain yourself later, okay?" I said in a whisper before turning to Shinichi, "Oh, Ran got your message, she's outside waiting for you. Don't keep her waiting too long, I won't forgive you if you make her cry."

"Eh? Why didn't you tell me she was waiting before?" He said as he stood up and went out the door. I decided that I didn't need to answer the question and simply watched him leave.

Shinji looked at me with a suspicious glance before going back to staring at Gin, I was able to understand what he meant by his gaze. I replied, "Don't mind me, I just wanted to see with my own eyes that we had captured Gin. I have to go talk to Haibara-san about something, so I'm actually leaving now... good luck."

It was way too obvious that he wanted to be left alone.

...

"You wanted to see me?" I asked hoping to sound confident.

Ran smiled at me -_thank God, that means she's not mad I kept her waiting_- and said, "Of course I wanted to see you. I was hoping we could maybe hang out together..."

_A date? Is... is she asking me out on a date?_ I made sure to hide my surprise, "um, sure. Shinji and Conan should be able to take care of things here on their own for a while. Why don't we go to Tropical Land, maybe we won't get interrupted this time"

"Sounds like fun," She replied, adding a cute giggle afterwards, "It's a date then? Our first real date."

The normal-ness of it all seemed almost surreal. Doing something so -for lack of a better word- normal felt like a dream after the strangeness of the events that had been happening so far.

I liked it.

The dream-like feeling of the normal lifestyle I had before any of this time travel nonsense had come into play, before I had to worry that any person wearing an excessive amount of black might be aiming to kill me, before my life had been turned upside down by a string of nonsensical events. Ran was probably my only real connection to the normalcy I'd had before all of this happened.

"Yeah, it's a date..." I said, adding a more masculine laugh of my own.

Conan and Shinji can handle the strangeness. They were the ones that had brought it with them when they appeared out of nowhere on that day when Ran and I had been at Tropical Land before. As for me, I wasn't ready to let the dream end, I would cling on to what remained of my mundane daily life with everything I had.

Of course, the dream would have to end eventually, but I could only pray that it would last just a bit longer.

"Then let's go."

...

"You may as well stop pretending to sleep now Gin," I said, my voice came out in an annoyed tone layered with sarcasm, "If fact if you wanted to try to escape now would likely be the best opportunity, considering my small stature if you managed to get away from all the duct tape I probably wouldn't be able to stop you."

"Alright, brat. You've got my attention," Gin said, finally ending the pointless charade, "Could you go get me something to smoke?"

_He want's a cigarette? Isn't that a bit too nonchalant for this situation? I don't really mind but..._ I sighed, "It'd be too easy for you to commit suicide with a lit cigarette, you aren't really the type to do so but I'd rather not give you any opportunities. You intended to make the atmosphere more laid back so you could get as much information out of me as possible, right? If that's not it then you were aiming to make an escape while I went to get a cigarette... but you've overlooked one thing Gin..."

He seemed to be somewhat surprised by my response but he didn't look as though he really cared that his ploy hadn't worked, "Oh, and what is it I've overlooked?"

"I'm seven years old," I replied, "it's not easy for a seven year old to get cigarettes."

"Somehow I doubt that," His tone was, indeed, doubtful.

"As you should, considering it's not true."

"Who are you really?" It sounded as though he didn't really care what the answer was, he was only asking to stave off his boredom.

I myself was surprised by just how entertaining it was to have a conversation like this with the object of my hatred.

"You kidnapped me a while back, I thought you already knew..." I replied.

"Enlighten me."

"The man you've killed seven times."


	32. Paranoia Is Contagious

**HaHaHaHa *breaks down into nervous laughter* author's block sucks. You know that right? I got halfway through writing this chapter before I suddenly blanked on it and randomly started writing another story (Yeah I might post that later... it turned out rather entertaining but completely weird) so this chapter is something I basically had to force myself to make up, sorry, that said I hope it's not too crappy.  
**

**I've said it before so I'll say it again, I suck at writing bad guys... usually my stories wind up with a character 'fighting' some either a difficult situation or some kind of psychological issue, so naturally due to my extreme inability to actually write an evil seeming bad guy in an actual material confrontation... Gin will most likely be extremely ooc... please bear with me as far as he -or anyone else that's supposed to seem evil- is concerned, just imagine they're more intimidating than the dialogue leads then to appear...  
**

**It's because of you guys that review and stuff that I eventually found the motivation to write this chapter, and I'm happy about all of you that don't review too... but feedback is good. It helps alot! Thanks to all of you anyway. Arigato!  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**32. Paranoia Is Contagious  
**

"I meant your name."

Gin seemed to be slightly perturbed by the fact I was claiming to have died seven times... well it was a bit of an exaggeration, I only officially died once -you already know about that- the others were just reasonable scraps at the border of life and death.

"My name is of little importance, it's complicated anyway, let's see if you can guess?" I suggested, "First you attempted to poison me with Apotoxin 4869, once you set the room I was in on fire -though you didn't know I was there, once you fired at me with a machine gun from a helicopter, once you set off a bomb in the room I was in, several other similar situations occurred -enough that I stopped counting for a while so let's just count them as one, there was a second instance of you poisoning me with Apotoxin 4869 -I admit it's entirely my fault for not predicting that it would happen a second time, and once you shot through my heart. Any ideas who I might be?"

His expression had changed, clearly a bit surprised, but I doubted that he was able to determine who I was from that as most of the events I'd mentioned hadn't occurred in this timeline. At least they hadn't happened in this timeline yet, and I was relatively determined to prevent them from happening again, considering that most of them were really no fun the first time.

"I failed to kill you that many times?"

"You succeeded once, but due to rather lucky circumstances on my part I was able to return," I smiled.

"At this point are you even human?"

_Good question, I've shrunken twice, and died once... am I still considered human? Actually... why am I answering all of his questions honestly?_

"I wonder that myself sometimes, not really sure though."

Alright, this isn't much fun anymore, time to change it up a bit.

I put on my usual smug smirk, "Now it's time for you to answer some of my questions."

...

"Oh, Conan-kun, you're back early. Did they not need your help?" Haibara-san asked. That is to say the elder of the two Haibaras, I had the habit of referring to the younger without honorific as my own way of distinguishing them, Shinichi appeared to be doing the same though Shinji seemed to enjoy calling them both by their first names without honorific.

Despite having the feeling that she would definitely not be happy with the truth I answered honestly anyway, "Shinji looked like he wanted to be left alone with Gin, so I let him do guard duty for a while."

"You left him alone with Gin?" She replied, the shock in her voice was completely unhidden by her usual facade. Her paranoia was obviously beginning to take over.

"It's fine, do you have any idea how useful duct tape can be for restraining people?"

"That's not my point! Gin is very dangerous! And Shinji... I think there's still something he's not telling us..."

I thought back to some of the weird things Shinji had done in the time that I knew him, and couldn't help but agree, "Yeah, he definitely hasn't told us everything..."

_If Shinji hasn't told us something it must not be that important right? It must not be something we need to know..._ Still the fact that I was agreeing with super paranoia girl troubled me deeply. I was beginning to worry that maybe he had left out some important detail, or worse that he was hiding some secret from his past...

...

I knew it had been too good to be true.

Being on a date with Ran at Tropical Land felt amazing after so much time filled with weirdness had passed. Unfortunately I couldn't just let loose and enjoy it, unlike last time I didn't have to worry about finding some time to confess to Ran but I was still unable to enjoy our date.

For me the world had been a different place back then. I had no more worries than whether or not Ran liked me back, but now I couldn't walk ten steps without glancing back over my shoulder. My heart would pause whenever I saw anyone -even a child- dressed in black.

The biggest problem was that I knew I _wasn't_ just being paranoid, it was all completely justified by recent events. There _were _suspicious people dressed in black that _were_ after my life, I wasn't sure if there were any at Tropical Land, but I was well aware that such people did exist - there was no use in me denying it.

Ran seemed to realize that I was distracted, and she understood why; but neither of us really felt comfortable talking about it. So we walked around Tropical Land in silence, every now and then one of us would cheerfully suggest going on a ride or get some kind of commercialized sugary snack, but the awkwardly strained silence would persist.

Despite my paranoia -or rather in spite of it- nothing happened. It had been a completely normal date aside from the awkwardness (though perhaps that's what made it normal). No assassins. No time travelers. No child/teen/adults spewing nonsense. Nothing out of the ordinary.

_I hate my life..._


	33. Fallacies That Exist Only Under The Moon

**Alright! Sudden burst of inspiration despite my author's block! Let's break out of limbo and let something actually happen! It will be weird, it will be shocking, it will resolve issues... so I'd advise you not to read this chapter while drinking (alcohol or otherwise... actually you shouldn't drink alcohol while reading a Conan story, it's hypocritical) or else you might do a spit-take all over your computer... well now that I've said that you won't be surprised but still...  
**

**Haibara (older)'s new name will be revealed, not long after initially posting that chapter I came up with two I kinda liked and wound up calling her those interchangeably in my head, I wound up using the cuter sounding one. but the other was 'Kuroko' hehe get it? Yeah I know it's just a stupid joke, but I couldn't get it out of my head...  
**

**Next chapter is the last one (unless I do an omake for all the random crap I wanted to include that never fitin the story)why don't you try and solve Shinji's riddle? **

**Honestly, I'm surprised people are still reading this... I mean I suck at writing bad guys... my romance is half-baked at best... and the plot is just strung together is such a way that it seems overly complicated but it's really just the character relations that are. Looking at it now I really am a terrible author *nervous laugh* I'm grateful for you guys... really... Arigato Gozaimasu.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**33. Fallacies That Exist Only Under The Moon  
**

When Shinichi came home he took over Gin-watching duty for me, and I decided to go to the professor's house to see what Conan and Yuki (that is to say the older Haibara) were up to, hoping it was something interesting. Upon opening the door I witnessed their momentary looks of surprise and a silent exchange.

Yuki asked -_'do you think he heard us?'_

Conan replied -_'I don't think so... maybe...'_

It was painfully obvious that they had been talking about me and it wasn't something they wanted me to know about. So it wasn't very difficult to deduce that they were suspicious of something, probably concerning my past. Sure I have a rather sketchy past and left out plenty of details when describing it to them, even so, gossip is no good, it's not nice to talk about people behind their backs.

I asked, "Okay... what is it you suspect me of?"

Yuki replied with a poker face that would have made Kaito proud, "Concealing information."

"And what kind of _information_ am I supposedly concealing?" I asked, only slightly curious. I could already see where this was going, it was a rather annoying direction to say the least.

"Information concerning your past," she replied -_Called it-_ still poker faced, she continued, "possibly regarding those you call the Black Organization."

I laughed, "It's nothing like that, the thing I'm hiding -if you want to call it that- concerns the present, very much so. You see, I've solved the mystery."

There was a very cute (did I just say that?) deadpanned expression on Conan's face, "What mystery?"

"That's something I can't tell you, or rather... by saying it I'd be denying myself," I replied with a smile. The smile was fake though, I'm sure Conan was able to tell at least that much, but he still had no idea what I was talking about.

He looked like he was going to ask what I meant by that, but he realized that I had no intention of giving a clear answer so he didn't even bother to ask.

_No fun, if you don't ask, I don't get to give you a vague answer... _I pouted.

"Alright, I'll give you a hint," I said, earning an eyebrow raise from Conan, "Do you understand the difference between denying reality and perceiving something that isn't real as though it were the truth. Your current scenario is so; such a thing as this can't last forever, but only while the moon hangs in the sky."

If I'd just said it outright then he'd have never believed me, or even if he did the knowledge would have been useless.

"Have you been drinking with Kaitou Kid or something?"

"Oh? No, I assure you that was just the _least_ straightforward way I could phrase it and still make it easy to understand," I said.

Yuki at least seemed to have gotten what I was trying to say. With that I decided that it was no use for me to stay there much longer, he would understand if he was meant to, and I rather hoped he did.

If he couldn't understand then illusion could very well last forever, as an unending loop.

...

Not long after Shinji mysteriously left with strange parting words Haibara-san suddenly looked at me with an expression that I don't know how to describe as anything but un-Haibara-ish.

"Conan-kun... actually there's..." She said, her voice barely more than a whisper, "there's something I've been wanting to do since before you left our original timeline... I... um..."

What's she being so shy for? Wait... she's blushing! Haibara-san is blushing! She must have a cold or something...

"What's wrong Haibara-san?" I asked.

"Nothing there's nothing wrong..."

"Then why are you..." I started to ask but she suddenly snapped and interrupted me.

"There's nothing wrong, Okay?" After she calmed down she added, "I've wanted to do this for quite a while, but I never would have... but with what he just said... 'I' may never have a chance after..."

She trailed off.

_What does she mean by that? The thing she want's to do relates to what he was talking about?_

"What is it Haibara-san?" I tried asking but to no avail.

"It doesn't matter... Really... it doesn't freaking matter," she said in a very tsundere tone.

_Well, clearly, it matters a lot doesn't it. Ugh! Why can't they just tell me?_

She paused for a moment before saying, "Close your eyes."

I didn't understand but I complied.

She warped her arms around me tightly, pushing her lips against mine. I didn't fight it. I could feel drops of lukewarm liquid - tears I assumed, but with my eyes shut tightly I couldn't be sure- flowing down her cheek where her face and mine met seamlessly.

Then after a moment had passed she pulled away. I opened my eyes to see her wiping tears -I had been correct- off of her pinkened face.

She said in a whisper of a voice, "The dream must end, nothing can last forever..."

And then she walked away in silence leaving me alone.

My mind was a mess, I wasn't sure what to do.


	34. Welcome Back

**I have no idea where the ConAi kiss scene from last chapter came from... well it probably has something to do with the fact that I recently watched episode 345... yeah that's probably it...  
**

**I'm not going to bother rambling pointlessly this time, I just hope you enjoy it ^v^ I hinted that this was going to be how it would end a lot, but I don't think anyone noticed... well the 'mystery' that Shinji mentioned will be solved, then Conan ponders his sanity... the end. Sorry that it's such a lame ending, but at least it's Short, sweet, and to the point.  
**

**Arigato Gozaimasu everybody. I'm really glad for all of you who've read so far, especially those of you who reviewed, I would have ended it all around chaper nine or ten if there weren't so many nice people reading out there.  
**

**-._.-._.-**

**34. Welcome Back  
**

I could feel myself being gently shaken over and over.

"C ... n-kun ... Co... an ... ku ... w ... e ... up ..."

_Eh? Who's that? I'm tired...  
_

"Con ... n-ku ... wa ... e ... u ... Cona ... -kun ..."

_That's Ran's voice... what's going on?_

"Conan-kun ... wake up ..."

_Eh? 'Wake up' ... but when did I fall asleep? I don't remember ...  
_

_ Why is Ran trying to wake me up anyway, I live at the professor's house now ..._

As if by instinct I murmured a response, "Just a ... little bit longer ... Ran-neechan ..."

_That's weird, I stopped calling her that after Shinichi told her the truth about everything ..._

When she didn't stop trying to wake me up I continued my earlier statement, "Let me sleep ... for a little bit longer ... Ran-neechan ..."

"Conan-kun, you have to wake up now! If you don't you won't have time for breakfast before you go to school."

At this point I was almost completely awake, but I didn't feel like giving up on sleeping so I stubbornly replied, "Ran ... I'm not a little kid can't I skip school just this once ..."

"What are you talking about Conan? You're only seven. Of course you can't skip school!"

_Eh?_

That's when I realized exactly what was going on.

It was all a dream.

_Of course it was! Time travel can't exist, there's no way a person can come back after dying, there were even times when things contradicted themselves... of course it had all just been a dream. How could I have been stupid enough to think it was real? Why didn't I think at least once that it might've been a dream..._

When I tried thinking about it carefully there was so much evidence that it was only a dream and not actually real that I couldn't keep myself from face-palming.

_Freud would have a field day with this..._

There was no way I was going to go to school after Haaibara had kissed me in a dream. I wouldn't be able to face her... even if it was just a dream- no the fact that it was a dream just made the entire situation worse, it meant that _somewhere_ in my subconscious I actually _wanted_ something like that to happen.

"But I don't feel very good Ran-neechan..." I added a fake cough, "Can't I just stay home today?"

Hesitantly, Ran agreed that because I was sick I could stay home from school and went to go get me some chicken soup.

Suddenly I could hear a loud buzzing noise coming from behind me. I turned to see that it was just my cellphone vibrating because I'd gotten a text message from an unknown sender.

It read:

_Yo, Conan,_

_Welcome back to reality. - Ji-chan  
_

_p.s.- see you in dreamland.  
_

The text message made no sense. The only person it could have possibly come from would have been Shinji... but he doesn't exist, he was just a dream. So why did I have a text message from a nonexistent person? There was probably no one in the world that could answer that question; but if you were to assume that everything actually had been real and that the paradox that Shinji, Shinichi, and I caused turned it all into my dream to restore the world's balance it might make a little bit of sense.

Upon checking I saw that my cellphone still had the short text conversation from when Shinji asked me to help him with Plan B saved, but there weren't any other messages that could shed any more light on the subject of whether all of it had really been a dream or not.

I decided to ask Shinji if I ever saw him again, it felt weird to assume he would know more about it than I did considering that if he were simply a character in my dream that he would have to be a figment of my imagination. Judging by his message I probably would see him in the world of my dreams, I would ask him about all of this whenever that happened - if it ever did.

_I've officially gone insane haven't I?_

I wondered whether or not I should get a therapist until Ran returned with a bowl of hot -but not too hot- chicken soup, which I proceeded to eat/drink.

My conclusion: I'd drive a therapist insane. All I'd have to do is say '_hello I'm Shinichi Kudo, I'm seventeen, but don't tell anybody because I'm pretending to be seven year old Conan Edogawa, I shrank to this age because some black-clothed members of an evil organization poisoned me but that's not why I'm here. You see lately I've been having some weird dreams about time travel and ..._' need I say more? Therapy was out of the question.

I just have to keep myself sane enough to take down the black organization and return to my original body, then maybe I might get myself some therapy.

**-._.-._.-**

**_THE END_  
**

probably...


	35. In Dreamland

**I won't bother rambling right here, not really that much to say anyway, but please review (pretty please with sugar on top!)!  
**

**Seriously! Almost 5000 hits... wow, thanks guys really. I'm not just going to thank the people that have reviewed because I'd feel like I was cheating the people that don't cause I can't name them off... so just thanks to everyone kay?  
**

**This is an Afterward, a Postscript, an Omake, an Epilogue. It's longer than the regular chapters and it includes questions I wanted to ask but didn't have the chance during the original story, it should also clear up the dream/reality confusion... so without further ado, enjoy!  
**

* * *

**35. In Dreamland**

It had been a week since I'd had that odd dream and I was beginning to think it was just that -a dream- despite various circumstances that lead me to believe it wasn't, at least not entirely.

That message was what bothered me the most. It had come from Shinji, who was supposedly a dream, and he'd practically said as much in his message, but the very existence of the message in reality proved that it had been to some degree real. I'd even had Haibara look at the message to make sure it wasn't just a hallucination on my part.

'See you in dreamland' he'd said. At first I'd had hope maybe I would be able to meet him again in the world of dreams, but as days passed without me having any dreams that had any sense of realism to them I'd started to lose that hope. I'd even began to think that maybe the message was just an odd coincidence, that it was sent to me by mistake because someone had put in the wrong number, as unlikely as that theory was.

In any case it was at that time, a full week since the passing of that event, that I'd drifted into sleep and found myself in that familiar world.

I fell asleep in my own bed at the Mouri Detective agency and when my eyes next opened I was laying on the couch at the professors house. It took me only a few seconds to grasp what was going on, a moment longer to understand it.

"Congratulations! You're having a lucid dream!" Shinji said in a near shout leaning at me.

"So... it _is_ a dream?" I asked hesitantly.

"Probably..."

_What an uncertain answer..._

"Even if I had given you a straight answer it wouldn't really matter much now would it? This is -more likely than not- _your_ dream, it's possible that you'd just see or hear whatever you'd like to, therefore there's no guarantee my answers can be the truth," He replied, "simply because it_ is_ a dream."

"I doubt I'd take advantage of the fact that it's a dream to manipulate what you say," I argued, "If I had that much control over my dreams then it wouldn't have been a week before I came back to this one. So we can assume that whatever you say is what you believe."

"A week?" He looked at me quizzically, "On this side of things it's only been an hour. Yuki called me when you suddenly collapsed and that's when I sent that message. Hmmm... a time difference of a week... there must be some significance in that, or perhaps it's a sign that this '_dream_' is also a form of reality... curious... very curious..."

"You mean like this is an alternate dimension manifesting as a dream?"

"An alternate dimension... Of course not! You and I may be time travelers in this world but don't go off and randomly become a slider!" He said, his expression looked angry but his tone made it clear that he found the idea amusing, he continued with a more serious demeanor, "It's most likely a result of the paradox we'd caused. This world up until an hour and fifteen minutes ago -about a week for you- was reality but it was decided that you and I had too much effect in the world when we shouldn't have even existed to begin with so in order to correct the issue the world rewrote itself and made everything that had happened nothing more than a dream... Your dream..."

He paused, giving me a moment to take in everything that he'd just said, but while I was still processing he'd begun mumbling incomprehensibly to himself.

"...strange... I wonder, if that's the case then how would the current state of things be described? Is this continuation of a world-line that has already been dubbed a dream just the product of wishful thinking in your idle mind, or did I perhaps connect this world to what is now reality when I sent that message to you as your consciousness moved from this world to that one? By the first scenario 'I' would then be nothing more than a figment of your imagination reproduced by your memory of the first 'dream', but if the second is correct then we are indeed in parallel worlds and you are the connection between the two..."

"Shinji," I called out his name in hopes of getting him to shut up, which thankfully he did, he'd been giving me a bit of a headache with his speech so I was glad to see it over.

"Yeah I guess it doesn't really mater anymore anyway, there _are_ much more pressing matters at hand..."

"Eh? Like what?"I honestly wondered what matter he might find more pressing than whether or not he was now a figment of my imagination.

He'd seemed a bit lost in thought for a moment before I'd asked my question, snapping him back to reality, "Lately I've been wondering how Apotoxin 4869 will affect my lifespan."

_Oh? That is a good question..._

"With my body being that of a six or seven year old and my mind that of a twenty-eight year old, I wonder which age I'd be technically considered. On one hand if I have the remaining lifespan of a six or seven year old then 'Shinichi Kudo' will be living about twenty extra years, on the other hand if I have that remaining lifespan of my proper age than 'Shinji Kudo' will die twenty years younger than could be predicted."

"You really do worry about such useless things," Haibara-san said as she stood in the doorway, having just came up from the downstairs lab, "You could easily be killed by those you call the Black Organization tomorrow, why wonder how long you have left to live when you can't be sure that you will live that long?"

_Urk... good point._

"I've already lived twelve and a half years since being poisoned, do you think I won't be able to keep that up much longer? Besides, you realize we've captured Gin, one of the most dangerous members of that organization, don't you? Clearly, I'm not so easy to kill as you think, Yuki-chan."

"Would you_ please_ stop calling me that?" She asked, her words may have seemed polite but she gave him a look that would have killed probably anyone but Shinji.

"Calling you what? Yuki-chan? But it has such a nice ring to it," He replied, facing her killer gaze with a smile as though it were nothing, "You agree right, Conan? The name Yuki Haibara really suits Yuki-chan~."

_It does suit her but... _I tried to convey what I thought about his statement with my expression, "Don't get me involved in this."

"Why don't we change the subject then?" Shinji suggested, "You look like you still have things you wanted to ask me."

"Yeah... actually I was kind of wondering..." I trailed off. _This is going to be so awkward to ask while Haibara-san is still in the room... _

She didn't look like she'd be leaving anytime soon.

I managed to continue anyway, "...how did that date you had with Ran back before Plan B started go? Something happened right?"

"That's it!" Shinji said suddenly, "Something I would know about that you wouldn't, with an answer you wouldn't expect! That proves that this wasn't completely your dream and was at some point reality!"

"Could you just answer?"

"Oh my apologies...you see what had happened was..." He said, acting a bit embarrassed to have not answered the question in the first place, "Well long story short... she didn't believe that I was Shinichi Kudo."

"What? I had to ask, it made absolutely no sense, "She... she didn't believe you were... well... _you_?"

"Yes... though admittedly the twelve years I spent predominately as Conan Edogawa changed me in ways you wouldn't even begin to imagine (and I'm sure you wouldn't want to), I think it was my personality that made her so wary of me..." He replied as though he was stating the most normal thing in the world.

Knowing better than to ask about what unimaginable changes that I supposedly wouldn't want to think of had taken place I asked something else, "So... what did you do about her not believing that you were Shinichi Kudo?"

"I told her that I was Conan Edogawa from the future."

"You did what? ! ?"

"Asking a second time doesn't change the answer; I told her that I was Conan Edogawa from the future, and that I had traveled back in time in order that help 'Shinichi' with his big case."

Haibara-san responded before I could, "And she believed you?"

"Not until I showed her my driver's license..." He said, showing it to us. Sure enough, it stated that he was Conan Edogawa and eighteen years old, it also included the year and date he'd gotten the license.

"Baka."

"It's not like it's a lie."

"Well that's true but..."

"Conan. There's something a bit more important for you to be worrying about than how I chose to truthfully lie to your Ran, I'm sure you've realized by now..." He trailed off, he clearly didn't want to say what he seemed to feel needed to be said.

I wondered for a while what he was getting at but I couldn't come up with anything.

"If your 'reality' has changed back to how things were before I'd appeared and started making small changes, if things are how it was before I started Plan A then..."

"I understand," I said, he sighed glad he didn't have to mention any more.

He'd been planning to say, '_ then the future I'd come from is likely to happen again_.' The 'event' that he'd intended to change using Plan A will occur is about nine and a half years if I don't do anything to change it. I definitely couldn't leave things as they were, but we could take care of that together as long as Shinji gives me his advice from in my dreams.

After that we just made light conversation about various things, and after a while I almost forgot that I was in a dream. Before long I found my self opening my eyes again to find that I had woken up, it was actually a bit disappointing, but I guess dreams are supposed to feel good.

Later at school that day I decided to talk to Haibara at lunch, I made sure the others weren't listening when I spoke up.

"Oi, Haibara," I said, feeling only slightly foolish for what I was about to ask, "What do you think about time travel?"

"Idiot. Time travel is impossible," she replied with her usual cold demeanor. Almost the same reaction as when Shinji had said that he was from the future.

I couldn't help but laugh a little bit to myself. _'Say's the girl that _invented _the time machin_e.'


End file.
